


Sugar From Simmons

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Illustrated, M/M, Older sugar daddy Simmons rolling into Hawaii and bribing someone to date him, Simmons: good at capitalism, because he doesn't know how to get a boyfriend the normal way, but neither party wants it to be that way and it changes eventually, former carmmons, not so much at flirting, some yorkalina but its not the focus, vaguely sketch relationship dynamics at first, younger sugar baby Grif who's vaguely overwhelmed by someone ELSE taking care of HIM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-01-30 09:58:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12651288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: The rich fuck sitting at the table by the window won’t stop looking at him weird.





	1. Rich Fuck

**Author's Note:**

> This fic wouldn't have been possible without hylian_reptile's support, or at least not to this amazing extent. Check out her [fics!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hylian_reptile/pseuds/hylian_reptile)
> 
> The two absolutely mindblowing illustrations were done by [mbhaes](http://mbhaes.tumblr.com/), AKA grimmmons. Check out her art!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then he takes out the money for the tip. It far, FAR outweighs how much he’s paying for the wine. Grif can feel his eyes widen, his back going straight. That’s not the kind of money you give to a shitty waiter who can’t talk polite. That’s not even the kind of money you give to a waiter you think is hot. That isn’t how anyone tips, not even the most out of touch rich assholes.
> 
> Explanation: this isn’t just a tip.
> 
> Grif realizes what’s happening.

The rich fuck sitting at the table by the window won’t stop looking at him weird. 

It’s nearing the tail end of a twelve hour shift for Grif, and he’s tired as hell, and he knows that if another customer yells at him for something that isn’t his fault again he’ll… be even more tired. And not do anything to jeopardize his job. He suppresses a sigh and goes to take Rich Fuck’s order.

Rich Fuck looks like he’s somewhere around fifty, red hair going grey at the temples and crow’s feet at the corner of his eye. His other lacks them because it’s a cyborg eye, surrounded by smooth metal instead of skin. Grif can tell he’s a _rich_ fuck because he could afford a seriously nice cyborg eye, and a seriously nice cyborg arm, and who knows what else. And he’s wearing a suit that looks like it costs more than his shitty apartment and shitty car combined, even though it's clearly way too much for Hawaii's hot weather. He’s sweating. Probably his first time vacationing here, considering how fucking pale he is.

Grif’s too tired to muster a smile for him, but he can at least keep his face and tone mild and inoffensive. “You ready to order?”

Maybe a bit too casual for the level of fancy this restaraunt is. Hey, so sue him, he’s not used to working at _nice_ places. He’s just turned twenty and is only now beginning to look less like a teenager, and is thus finally able to start serving at places that aren’t fast food places that pay shit. Instead he can serve at reasonably nice looking places that pay slightly more than shit.

Rich Fuck’s eyes flicker up and down over him before settling on his face real fast. Grif stops himself from bristling. What the hell is his problem? Does he think he doesn’t look like he belongs? _Fuck_ him. Grif was born here, not him. And he’s wearing his uniform and he’s kept it clean his whole shift and his hair’s tied back and--

“Uh, the house wine, please?” And then he winces at what he just said like he just made a terrible mistake. Grif relaxes at it though. He just sounds nervous, for whatever reason. That’s fine. He’ll take nervous over judgy, snippy, or condescending any day of the week.

The place is actually nice enough to have one of those so he says, “Sure,” and turns around, belatedly remembering that he probably should’ve been more polite than that. Ugh. He’ll get used to it soon (hopefully before someone complains and he gets fired).

He takes some other people’s orders on his way to the kitchen, and gets the shit. He can’t believe he has to fucking _cart_ it over to the guy, why does wine need a bucket of ice again? He doesn’t care.

“Alright, here’s the,” he quickly looks at the bottle and reads off the label, trying to seem like he isn’t just reading off the label. He looks up from the bottle to catch the guy looking him up and down again. The guy flushes and looks away.

“Um, thanks for the,” the guy hesitates and then his eyes dart over to the bottle to read off of the label. He wasn’t listening to Grif. Grif keeps his expression neutral as he casually turns the bottle around so the label is obscured. “... the wine,” Rich Fuck finishes weakly. Grif suppresses a smirk with a Herculean force of will and many year’s experience of being in customer service.

“No problem,” he says, and pours the guy a glass. He leaves him to his drinking to look after some other tables that are looking increasingly impatient, and he decides to check the guy out in a reflection as he turns away.

He’s looking at Grif as he’s walking away, hand not even touching his wine glass yet. Grif is starting to get a hunch, and it’s pretty unbelievable. Mostly because this kind of stuff doesn’t happen to _Grif._ But, well, rich people are weird?

He considers it. On the one hand, he hasn’t had sex since before he dropped out of highschool. On the other, he is _so fucking tired._ Yeah, he doesn’t think he’s up for doing anything in his bed tonight besides immediately passing out in it. Sorry, weird rich dude with weird poor tastes. Guess you’ll just have to handle the blow of being casually rejected by some random waiter and go and find yourself a comfort high end courtesan.

“You ready to order some food now?” he asks Rich Fuck when he circles back to his table. He probably won’t be around to be the one to serve him his food, his clock’s ticking down, which’ll give Grif a nice opportunity to avoid any potential drama from maybe-rejecting him.

“No thank you,” the guy says after another pass of his eyes that he doesn’t seem capable of stopping. What a transparent idiot. It’s kinda cute. “I think I’d just like to take my check and go.”

“Alright then, cash or card?” he asks. They always make him ask that, he doesn’t know why, they always choose card--

“Cash,” Rich Fuck says.

Huh.

Grif tells him the price. It’s way too much for just a glass of wine, in his opinion (and in the opinion of anyone who had common sense, he thought), but the guy doesn’t so much as blink at it, of course. Grif’s barely been working here for two weeks and he’s already seen customers blow away more on a meal than he does on a month’s rent more than once. It’s kind of fucking infuriating and soul crushing to witness, but whatever.

The guy starts fishing around for his wallet in his pockets. “Um, by the way,” he says, and here it comes, the flirting. Can he maybe just act like he’s too oblivious to notice it? Grif’s good at acting dumb. Nothing to see here, just another stupid high school dropout who refills people’s drinks for a living now.

“I was wondering, after your shift…?” He finally finds his wallet. Grif keeps his face blank.

He’s blushing a little. Grif had no idea fifty year old men were allowed to blush. You learn something new every day.

“I mean, with me…” He takes out the money for the wine.

“That is, if you want to…” His gaze skitters away down and to the side.

And then he takes out the money for the tip. It far, FAR outweighs how much he’s paying for the wine. Grif can feel his eyes widen, his back going straight. That’s not the kind of money you give to a shitty waiter who can’t talk polite. That’s not even the kind of money you give to a waiter you think is hot. That isn’t how _anyone_ tips, not even the most out of touch rich assholes.

Explanation: this isn’t just a tip.

Grif realizes what’s happening.

A rapid calculation starts taking place in his head. Rent, bills, food, savings, emergencies, clothing, transport, gas, Kai who’s fifteen year olds and already making noises about getting a part time job next to school despite his best efforts and how her grades and attendance are already slipping and he doesn’t think her motivation can take that kind of blow, she won’t realize how big of a mistake she’s making until it’s too late, he can’t control her only reassure her but how can he reassure her if there’s actually a problem and he’s just on the verge of losing control of it like he always is--

Grif smiles at Rich Fuck for the first time tonight. Reaches out and takes the “tip”, his hand lingering on his hand, and then he tucks the money into his pocket, nice and deep. His. No one else gets to take it.

“I get off in five, actually,” he says. “Meet you in the parking lot?”

Rich Fuck’s blush only deepens, and he looks simultaneously happier and more nervous at the same time. Probably didn’t do this too often, then. Maybe even his first time? Probably why he went for someone like Grif then, safer odds. Grif would’ve just told him to go and find an actual professional in the field, but maybe he’s trying to be subtle (he certainly doesn’t seem to have a predilection for it so he probably needs all the help he can get). Rich assholes can get weird about their reputations and jobs and stuff. He could be in politics, for all he knew. This could ruin him if it got out.

Grif doesn’t care. Grif cares about that nervous nod in affirmation, about walking away to chug two cups of coffee in rapid succession before his shift ends so he can work up the energy for performing his end of the deal, about that reassuring weight in his right pocket. His mind just can’t stop registering it. Won’t have to skip dinner tomorrow. Won’t have to fill up on tap water at the end of the month. Won’t have to take another twelve hour shift tomorrow. That’s what that weight means. His heart sings with it.

He clocks out, changes, and then stares in dismay at his non uniform outfit. It’s a stained, baggy hoodie and jeans with holes in them that had not been there when he’d bought them, shoes so beat up that he’s just waiting for the soles to literally fall off while he’s walking home one day. So… not as neat and put together as his uniform. In his defense, he hadn’t been expecting to seduce anyone when he woke up this morning. Or ever.

Whatever, he decides. It isn’t like there’s anything he can do about it, and he’s already got the money. If the guy thinks he can take it back now, he’s got another thing coming to him. Also, he’ll probably be taking all of this off soon enough anyways.

He walks out to the parking lot and searches it, glad Kai had asked for his car this morning. This way, he isn’t leaving it standing out all night. Dangerous. Even if it doesn’t look all that tempting, he knows.

He spots Rich Fuck easily. For one thing, he’s tall. For another, he’s standing next to the gaudiest, red sports car on the whole block. Grif falls in love with the stupid thing on sight.

He walks up to him, hands in his pockets, and taps Rich Fuck on his shoulder. He doesn’t notice him until he’s close because Grif walks outside the circles of light coming from the light posts, and the guy seems to think that Grif’ll be leaving from the main entrance for some reason.

“Hey,” he says as the guy starts and turns around. “Don’t worry, I’m not a mugger.”

“I wasn’t--” he protests.

“Nice car,” he says because he’s not particularly interested in that conversation, and also because it _is_ a nice car.

“It’s rented,” he says.

Of course. Vacationer. Well, either way Grif’s never seeing it again after tonight, so he supposes it’s okay.

“Give me a ride back to your place?” he asks with a crooked grin. As if there’s any chance they’re going back to _his_ place. He doesn’t think Rich Fuck would be too impressed.

“Sure,” he says, and then his eyes do that by now familiar up and down motion, taking him in again. Grif had let his hair loose hoping it would distract from everything else, and only belatedly hopes that the guy doesn’t have a ponytail fetish or something. Maybe he should’ve just tried to look as similar to as he had back when he’d been serving him. That’s what he knew the guy liked, after all.

His eyes halt at the stain on his hoodie for a moment, but then they continue, and when they come back to his face he’s still blushing, not frowning. Grif relaxes minutely.

Rich Fuck opens the door for him, and Grif lets himself smile at that. As Rich Fuck gets in on his side it occurs to him, he _is_ a Rich Fuck in every sense of the word, actually. He looks away out of his window to hide his wobbling smile, suppressing his laughter. He definitely doesn’t feel like explaining why he’s trying not to laugh right now to the guy. And then--

“Hey,” he says, looking over to Rich Fuck as he keys his ignition. “What’s your name?”

He freezes. “Huh?”

“You don’t have to give me your real one, it’s just kinda weird just thinking of you as-- a customer when we’re gonna,” for a moment he thinks about coyly saying _you know,_ but nah, “fuck.”

“Oh my god,” Rich Fuck says, and then hides his red face behind his hands, bending over the steering wheel. Grif wonders if that really was too much for him. How did he expect to survive the night? “I _haven’t told you my name yet.”_

“Pretty rude of you, really,” he says, grinning, and then realizes, “Oh, and I’m--”

“Grif,” Rich Fuck finishes for him. Grif blinks at him, startled, wondering for just a moment if this is some kind of stalker thing. “Nametag,” he explains.

Oh. Duh. So much for fake names, then.

“Well, you don’t have one. So…”

“Simmons,” he answers immediately, and the way he says it so quickly and then immediately winces like he thinks he just made a mistake makes him think that it’s his real, actual name.

“Nice to meet you, Simmons.” Nice to meet your wallet, too. “Now let’s at least get out of the parking lot, the night’s not getting any younger.” Unless he just wanted a handy here in his car in the dark outside of the restaurant? No. He doesn’t think so. Simmons is clearly rich, he wouldn’t pay for a handjob in his car like some middle class dude cheating on his wife.

Belatedly, he checks his hand for any rings, although he doesn’t know whether or not that’d change his mind in any way.

No rings, no tan lines. But maybe he usually wore it on his cyborg hand. Ah, whatever, it wasn’t any of his business.

They’re nice hands, he thinks. Long.

“Right! Right, let’s go. My hotel’s only fifteen minutes away.” And he starts the car and they’re off. It isn’t gridlock hour, but there’s still plenty of cars out, mostly going home from other restaurants and bars, and Simmons drives like the old man he is. Grif bet he could make it to his place in five if he was at the wheel.

Grif watches him out of the corner of his eye. He drums his hands on the steering wheel. Looks out of the window. Hurriedly looks back at the road as he remembers himself. Fiddles with the radio, doesn’t find anything good.

So nervous. It’s helping settle Grif’s own nerves somewhat.

The silence is getting uncomfortable, though.

“So, you do this often?” he asks, even though he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer. It’d be too weird to start talking about something normal like the weather right now, though.

He actually starts at that. Well, Grif hasn’t talked in awhile, letting the silence grow so overbearing until he couldn’t take it any longer. And then the blush is back. Easy blusher, huh.

“No!” He clears his throat. “Not really, no.”

“Yeah,” he says, and he suddenly itches for his smokes, for something to do with his hands. “Me neither.”

“I-- yeah,” Simmons says. “It’s part of why I asked--” propositioned, “--a waiter instead of, um--” He fumbles for an appropriate term.

“A sex worker?” Grif suggests.

“That’s what they’re calling them now?” Okay, that was the most old person thing he’s said all night. “Yeah, one of those. I don’t really… I thought it’d be better if I tried it with someone who doesn’t know so much more than I do.”

“You do realize that the blind leading the blind is supposed to be a bad thing, right?”

Simmons smiles at that, possibly for the first time tonight, Grif isn’t sure. It’s nice and sheepish. He likes it, he thinks.

“We’re here,” Simmons says suddenly, and oh, so they are, pulling into the parking lot of a _very_ nice looking hotel, tall and golden.

Grif isn’t nervous. He isn’t _that_ nervous. He gets out of the car, not waiting to see if Simmons will open the door for him again, and watches him toss the keys to the valet.

Farewell forever, beautiful red sports car. Grif made it a silent promise that he would dream of it.

They walk into the lobby, and everyone there’s professional enough not to ask Grif what the hell he thinks he’s doing there, although a couple people definitely look confused.

They get into the elevator and Simmons pressed a button that’s very high up. He starts trying to think of something to say, something that’ll spark a conversation that might distract just a bit from what’s about to happen. Not that he’s _dreading_ it, he wouldn’t have said yes if he did. But-- what if he’s into really gross shit that Grif isn’t into?

“Jesus I hate elevator music,” Simmons says.

Huh, maybe Simmons was starting to feel awkward in the silence again too.

“Hellish,” he agrees.

“I think I read somewhere that it’s supposed to be relaxing,” he continues. “But it just makes me want to punch something. It goes on and on and _on--”_

“Maybe they’re just fucking with us,” he suggests.

“They?” Simmons raises an eyebrow at him.

“The elevator people,” Grif says with grave seriousness.

“The elevator people,” Simmons flatly repeats.

“They’re conspiring against us,” Grif continued just as solemnly.

“Us?” And there comes the other eyebrow up to join its brother.

“Normal people!” Grif gives him a shiteating grin. “Normals versus elevators, a tale as old as time--”

“Okay, I think this is our floor!” Simmons says as the elevator dings.

Dang. Grif had really been ready to drag that one out.

The carpet: creamy and spotlessly clean. The wallpaper: navy blue, not a scratch or tear on it. The hallway: spotted with vases every three feet that would probably trap Grif in the Ouran Highschool Host Club for the rest of his life. They walk past three oak doors before Simmons stops and fishes a keycard out of his jacket. Well. This was it. Grif was walking into a stranger’s place to have sex with him. Which was completely normal, lots of people did it all the time. It was just the first time Grif was doing it. Also it was with an intimidatingly rich old dude, but whatever, those were just details, totally.

Remember: this guy was a transparent fucking dork too nervous to hire an actual sex worker. It was fine. He feels himself actually relax a little at that, and makes himself not hesitate as he follows Simmons into his room. Into his _suite._ Of course.

“Well,” Grif says, feeling obligated to make a comment. “This is certainly… ridiculously ostentatious.”

“Thanks?” Simmons says uncertainly, because yeah, that wasn’t really an appropriate compliment. Oops.

“Are there girls with leaf fans and grapes hiding behind that pillar? Oh, or maybe that other pillar!”

“Okay, I get it, it’s too much,” he says, beginning to sound a little cranky now. Ah, shit. Grif wasn’t nervous, really, but he also wasn’t _halfway_ relaxed enough to piss the guy off before they did this.

“Relax,” he says, to Simmons and himself. “It looks fine. Just not used to, uh, gold leaf detailing on my cupboards? Holy shit, is that real?” Would it be too much if he scraped a little off to take home? They wouldn’t miss it, right?

Simmons looks mollified, but also a little embarrassed. Well, he was grossly rich so maybe he _should_ feel a little embarrassed by it. And then he looks thoughtful. “What are you used to?”

Um?

“You know, normal stuff.” He shrugs.

“Everyone thinks what they’ve got is what’s normal,” Simmons points out.

“Single apartment, car I got on Craigslist, you know.” He’s rapidly becoming more uncomfortable with this conversation than he is with what they’re about to do, which is actually kind of a good thing once he thinks about it. The push he needs. “So are we doing this or what?”

And there’s that blush again. “Um. Yes. Right. Do--” He frantically looks around the suite. “Do you want a drink, first?”

Does he want to be a not entirely sober for this? _Hell yes._

“Just one,” he says just to be safe, and Simmons gratefully flees to wherever the wine is. Grif takes the opportunity to explore a little.

There’s the entrance, and it immediately opens up to some kinda living room area with floor to ceiling windows. This room alone is bigger than his entire apartment. To his right: a closed door. The bedroom? To his left: a room he can’t quite see where Simmons is making clinking noises. The kitchen? A hotel room with a kitchen. Fuck.

His pocket buzzes. Phone. He starts and fishes it out of his pocket. A text.

_Kai: where r u?_

A relatively small tsunami of shame washes over him. In the whole adrenaline rush of _a stranger is paying me money to fuck him_ and _oh holy shit a stranger is paying me a_ lot _of money to fuck him,_ he’d somehow completely forgotten about her. He tries. He tries really fucking hard, but sometimes he just feels like a shit brother anyways.

_Grif: out working all night. dont stay up 4 me_

Well. It’s technically not a lie, so it shouldn’t be making him feel guilty. It _shouldn’t._

God he hopes this guy doesn’t slit his throat, leaving Kai alone. It’d be such a stupid way to go.

_Kai: … K_

_leaving you some *pizza emoticon*_

He’s got a really good little sister.

_Grif: thnx. gotta turn off my phone now_

_Kai: <3 _

A _really_ good little sister.

_Grif: <3 _

And then he turns off his phone and shoves it into his pants pocket along with his precious bundle of money just in time for Simmons to walk in with the wine. He got a glass for himself as well. Apparently he’s not the only one here who needs liquid courage.

Grif accepts the glass and just comes right out and says it. “You seem nervous.”

Simmons splutters. “Well-- yes! Isn’t that normal? It’s my first time.”

Grif chokes on his wine. Simmons stares at him blankly for a moment before going redder than the wine.

 _“Not like that!”_ he hurries to correct him. “I mean, I’ve had sex before, I’m not a-- I’m not a _virgin,_ I just-- my first time paying for it! You know?”

“Yeah,” Grif gasps, resisting the urge to wipe his chin with his sleeve. This was red wine, after all. He’d heard it stained like a bitch, not that he’d ever had the pleasure of experiencing that first hand for himself before. He was a beer man, his dad liked gin before he left, his mom liked tequila, and Grif tried to stop Kai from enjoying anything like that at all. “Totally.”

“Really!” Simmons continues, apparently unconvinced that Grif’s convinced. “I-- I have an ex wife!” he says with triumphant realization. “Do you want to see pictures of her? Because she exists.”

_“Do I want to see pictures of your ex wife before we fuck?”_

“... Fair point.”

Simmons settles for finding some paper towels for him instead. Grif wipes his chin and Simmons practically chugs his own glass of wine. And then his shoulders abruptly hitch and he has to muffle a snicker into the crumpled, stained red wad of paper towels. Simmons gives him a strange look over his glass of wine, cheeks still fairly red. That just somehow makes it harder for him to stop, so he closes his eyes and wheezes into the paper.

“... Okay, I get it, that was pretty fucking stupid of me.”

“So stupid!” he gasps, still laughing. “Oh my god.”

“I do dumb stuff when I’m stressed!”

 _“Really_ dumb stuff,” he says, and then remembers himself. He wasn’t supposed to be pissing this guy off, right. He cautiously looks up to take a look at him, gauging his reaction, but he’s smiling now, actually, looking more relaxed than he has all evening.

Just the wine, probably.

Well, whatever, Grif’ll take it. Murderous psychopaths have a hard time laughing at themselves, right? So that’s another point in his favor. Nice hands, and probably not a serial killer. What a keeper.

“Okay,” he says. “I’m ready.”

He is.

Simmons straightens to attention and nods nervously, setting down his glass of wine and doing an about face and marching for the door to the right, the probably-the-bedroom.

Christ, okay, he’s really doing this. Get it together, Grif. _Money._ Think about all that sweet, beautiful money.

“You got condoms?” he asks, because he’s willing to draw some lines here, despite it all.

“Yes.” Grif can see the tips of his ears turning red from behind him. This shy old man, he swears to fuck.

“Lube?”

“Of course,” Simmons says, nodding.

“You taken your Viagra pills?”

“Ye-- _hey!”_

Grif laughs at him. Simmons shoots him an embarrassed scowl, but it’s not as intimidating as it had been a moment ago without that memory of Simmons smiling at him as Grif broke down into giggles over his stupidity.

Simmons opens the door and leads the way.

The bedroom’s preposterously lavish, just like everything else in this damned hotel. What kind of bed is that? King? Queen? Is there a rank higher than both of those? It’s huge at least, big enough that it looks like tall Simmons wouldn’t have to curl up to fit his feet under the blanket, large enough that Grif could spread eagle on it and Simmons would probably be able to sleep comfortably at his side.

Simmons gingerly takes off his jacket and starts folding it. Grif raises his eyebrow at him, unseen, mouth twitching upwards. Of course he folds all of his clothes before he has sex. Obviously.

And then he starts carefully unbuttoning his shirt and Grif remembers himself. He should probably-- also. His hand goes to the bottom of his hoodie and fiddles with it. Just rip it off, like a bandaid. Simmons wasn’t even looking at him, eyes trained on his hands as he unbuttoned his shirt that was probably made from some stupidly smooth fabric. It was fine.

God this feels unnatural. This isn’t even remotely like his last hookup, in so many different ways.

His last hookup had been fun though, definitely. Spontaneous and dumb and exciting in a good way. This time it was only one of those things.

His mind latches onto the idea that springs forth. Emulate. Make it feel natural, spontaneous. Fun.

Instead of taking his hoodie off (he doesn’t feel like it yet), he heads over to Simmons and interrupts his steady progress on his shirt to grab the lapels of his shirt and reel him down for a kiss. There’s a surprised puff of breath, and then Simmons presses back into it, hands leaving his shirt to tangle in his hair and the back of his hoodie. He smells like fancy cologne, but not a cloying amount.

They break apart eventually.

“So, I take it we’re not doing this Pretty Woman style, then?” Simmons asks with a dorky, crooked grin, flushed and looking a little breathless, shirt left messily half undone.

Now, it feels natural. Good.

“Dude, you do realize that having sex without kissing would be so damn weird, right?” he asks.

“I suppose so,” he says, and goes in for another kiss. Grif obliges him and starts tugging Simmons’ shirt out from where it's neatly tucked into his slacks as he tips his head back. Tongue this time. It’s warm and nice, and he realizes that he’s missed kissing without even realizing it for a while now. He’s missed it a _lot._

He disconnects from the kiss long enough to quickly shrug his hoodie off because now it feels right, and he rips the rest of the buttons on Simmons’ shirt off because that’s a move he’s always wanted to pull and the asshole can afford it. Simmons makes a noise of want deep from his chest at that, so he clearly isn’t pissed. Simmons’ shirt joins Grif’s hoodie on the floor, unfolded and crumpled. Simmons doesn’t so much as look at it.

Simmons presses into him, hands on his shoulders, kisses growing frenzied and a little sloppy, and Grif stumbles some steps back and realizes he’s being pushed in the direction of the bed. He goes along with it, one hand going up and down his bare sides and back, the other toying with and plucking at Simmons’ belt buckle, not quite unbuckling it _yet._

They stumble into and swiftly fall onto the bed, Grif on the bottom, and he actually _groans_ at how soft it is. Sure, he’s beginning to get worked up, but also this is such a nice bed and he wants to sleep in it forever. He’d completely forgotten that mattresses weren’t supposed to stab you in your back with their springs.

Thankfully, Simmons doesn’t seem to suspect that his groan was inspired by his damned _mattress_ and instead just focuses on rolling away reluctantly to quickly pull his shoes off. Grif’s are old and worn soft enough that he can just easily kick them off without sitting up. Oh, this is dangerous. He definitely shouldn’t fall asleep in the middle of this. That would be so bad. He should’ve drunk more coffee. Or maybe less wine.

“You’re really…” Simmons says, and Grif opens his eyes (when had they closed?) to see Simmons watching him with a strange, soft, entranced expression, reaching out to gently grab a handful of his hair. “Your hair looks good loose.”

No ponytail fetish, then. Thank fuck. Grif left his hair tie back at work.

“C’mere,” he says, feeling warm in more ways than one. For a rich fuck who pays strangers for sex, Simmons isn’t half bad. He could’ve definitely been way meaner right now.

Simmons crawls over to hover over him, hands braced at either side of his head, knees pressed up against his sides, caging him in. Grif _looks_ at him, lets the sight wake him up. The metal continues down the left side of his chest from his neck to down underneath the seam of his pants. It curves to the side in a way that makes Grif think he still has his dick. Otherwise, why the Viagra, after all? Well, whatever’s down there, he’ll work with it. On the flesh part of his body, his flush goes all the way down to his pants as well, and his organic eye is dark and intently fixed on his face, the red inorganic one’s iris continually changing size as if he can’t stop calibrating or changing modes. Does that thing have X-ray? That thing better not have X-ray.

He hooks a hand over the back of Simmons’ neck and pulls him down for another kiss, slow and languid and perfect, Simmons sinking down on him. He’s not too heavy, and he’s still partially bracing himself up.

This way, he can feel Simmons’ hard on, and Simmons can feel his.

“Condoms,” Simmons gasps as he breaks away from the kiss. “Lube.”

Grif obligingly lets go of his hold on Simmons, and watches him as he sits up on Grif, straddling him, and leans over towards the nightstand to open the drawer and rifle through it. Grif grins, enjoying watching him twist and stretch. He’s in pretty good shape for an old dude. His hands go for his belt and he starts unbuckling him and Simmons makes a startled noise which is far too cute from where he’s searching for the supplies.

He pulls the belt loose from its loops, enjoying the feel of the leather material sliding through his hand before he tosses it to the floor somewhere and unbutton and unzips Simmons’ pants. Simmons groans with relief. Grif knows how he feels. He’s wearing _jeans_ right now, and it’s starting to ache in not the good way.

“Ha,” Simmons puffs, a quiet little victorious sound as he finds the supplies and sits more comfortably on Grif’s lap again, lube and condoms in hand. And then he stiffens up a little (posture wise, dick wise he’s plenty stiff already), looking tenser and a little worried. Just as Grif was beginning to get him to unwind, geez.

“What?” he asks.

“Um,” he says. “Which one of us should…?” He shakes his hands that are still holding the supplies a little for emphasis.

Grif blinks at him mildly as he reaches down with one hand to flick the button of his jeans off, and Simmons looks suddenly and mysteriously transfixed with how Grif’s slowly unzipping his jeans. “I’m fine with whatever, so isn’t it up to you?” He’d expected to bottom tonight, to be honest, and he didn’t really mind it either. Sure, there was more aching in the morning, but also oh god all of that hip thrusting from being on top. Not at the end of a twelve hour shift, no thanks.

“Oh,” he says, and dryly swallows. “Okay. If that’s how it’s supposed to…”

Grif narrows his eyes. Supposed to? Should?

Oh, fuck.

“Hang on,” he says. “Is this your first time with a guy?”

Simmons still won’t meet his eyes, but he’s now bashfully looking off to the side instead of at his crotch.

“Oh my god,” he continues. “Is this why you felt like you had to go out and pay someone to do it with you?”

“Well, hang on--!” Simmons finally looks him in the eyes, flushed with embarrassment rather than arousal now. “I just! I’m not very good at-- at flirting in _general,_ alright? My marriage with Carolina was practically arranged!”

“I don’t want to know your ex wife’s name _as we’re doing it,_ dude!” God _damn_ it, if Simmons cried out Carolina while they were at it he was just going to get up and leave, he swore to god.

“Okay-- okay, fine, I’m sorry!” Simmons waves his hands angrily, then seems to remember just exactly what he’s holding in those hands, and then proceeds to melt a little with embarrassment from waving condoms and lube in the air.

Grif’s lip twitches and he suppresses a snort. What a fucking weirdo. He’s sitting shirtless in his lap and _this_ was what he chose to be embarrassed by.

“You can top,” he says, graciously saving Simmons from having to recover their momentum from that little aside on his own. “Probably for the best, me being your first macho dude and all that. Just don’t break your hip, old man.”

“I’m in my _fifties!”_ he says indignantly.

“Your point, geezer?”

Simmons makes a frustrated sound and settles for roughly tearing a condom packet open with his teeth. Nice.

Grif helps him slide off his slacks and underwear (prosthetic leg too), and he bites his lower lip as he watches Simmons roll the condom down his dick. It’s longer than his, red at the tip, and he suddenly intensely needs his own jeans to be _gone._

He lifts his hips off the bed and rolls them off, throwing them over to the floor that’s starting to get a little crowded with discarded pieces of clothing, not that Grif cares.

“Gimme the lube, rookie,” he breathes.

Simmons huffs a little at rookie, but still hands the bottle over. Grif’s feeling a little too impatiently horny at the moment to coach him on how to finger a man right now. He flips the cap off and the lube spills onto his fingers. Oh, it looks like the good shit. Of course it is. He arches a little and then gets his finger in there, and he sighs a little with satisfaction as his eyes close. At his exhale, he hears Simmons’ quiet inhale. Well, at least he seems to be enjoying himself as well.

He works himself for a while, but he’s fine with it being a little rough and he’s quickly running out of patience. He flicks the cap back on and tosses it to the side somewhere on the bed, but not before squirting another handful into his palm.

“Get your dick over here, Simmons,” he says, and looks at him.

Simmons shudders at the sound of his name, and Grif files that away. He looks painfully hard, hand wrapped around his dick already, flushed and breathing heavily. It looked like he’d enjoyed the show.

Simmons shuffles over, and Grif quickly grabs his dick before the lube drips out of his hand. Simmons groans, curling into himself a little at the touch. He starts stroking him and Simmons has to brace himself on the bed with his hand, looking down at him with amazed, passionate eyes, like Grif’s the only thing in the room even though Grif is absolutely sure he’s the cheapest thing here. He’d bet the bed sheet underneath him cost more than him.

Fuck, he’s starting to feel bad. Focus on the fun stuff. The way Simmons’ breath hitches when he thumbs at the head of his dick. The way his hips thrust up into his grip instinctively. The heat in the pit of his belly.

“Okay,” he rasps, feeling heady with arousal, mouth feeling dry. “You’re ready. Get in there.”

“Right,” Simmons pants. “Right.”

And he gets in there.

Grif’s hands fist in the bed spread and Simmons clutches at his hips as he slowly slides in.

“Oh my god,” Simmons gasps. “Oh my god, you feel so good.”

Grif bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut, and twitches his hips down into the slow, inexorable slide of his dick sinking deeper and deeper into him.

 _“Grif!”_ Simmons cries out, and oh, okay, yeah, he thinks he can get why Simmons shuddered at his name earlier like that. It’s been too long. Way, way too long. This is too good. Should it be this good?

“Simmons,” is torn out of him as Simmons finally gets in as much as he can, and they still for a moment just like that, panting, burning. Grif abruptly rocks forward so he can press a sloppy, desperate kiss onto Simmons’ mouth, and they both groan at the motion, muffled by each other’s lips.

Simmons starts thrusting, and Grif’s just fine with that.

At first he tries to remain quiet, but this is a hotel room fancy enough to probably have sound insulation, not a high school gym locker room with a shitty lock. As he realizes that, he lets loose a stream of curses.

“Fuck, fuck, _Simmons,_ harder, god, yes, that’s so good, shit!”

And more like that.

The bed doesn’t creak and scream and knock with the movement, it’s steady and soft and Grif wants to marry this bed, he wants to marry this dick, and he wants to marry--

_(okay that’s too much relax grif)_

Simmons’ hips do _not_ seem fragile, and Grif relishes in that just as he relishes in running his hands through his hair, messing up that distinguished red and grey, dotting his face and throat with messy, wet, heated kisses.

This is good. It’s so good.

“Grif,” Simmons says, sounding helpless and breathless and incredible. “You’re so, you’re so…”

And then Simmons comes, head thumping down on Grif’s shoulders as he tenses, nails scratching his skin as they curl into tight fists, a raw, ragged cry torn from his throat. Grif shudders, so turned on he can barely stand it, so close to the edge, and he reaches down to pump himself only a few times until he falls off the edge right along with Simmons. He comes so hard he feels dizzy with it, feeling weightless and adrift, except Simmons is right there to ground him, searing skin pressed up against searing skin.

Simmons kisses him on the lips before he pulls out of him, a soft press of lips against lips, and then he rolls off of him, lying next to him. The only sound in the room is their too fast breathing. The bed is soft, and Simmons is warm where he’s pressed up against his side.

He falls asleep almost immediately.


	2. Ridiculously Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He hadn’t really stopped to plan his getaway strategy in the heat of the moment.

He hadn’t really stopped to plan his getaway strategy in the heat of the moment. Because sure, it had been a surprisingly nice night, but in the end he’d just been paid to have sex with a guy, and he’d done it. Transaction completed. There wasn’t really anything else between them, unless if you counted Grif serving him as a waiter instead of as a--

Anyways. He’d been so focused on getting through the night itself that he wasn’t prepared for the morning after  _ at all.  _

In an ideal world, Grif would’ve woken up hours before Simmons, quietly gotten dressed, left with his money and then amicably never spoken to or seen the guy again, taking the knowledge of the encounter with him to his grave because he gets judged enough as it is, thanks. 

Instead, he wakes up to the smell of pancakes. Now, this might not sound like a bad thing at all. It certainly doesn’t register as such for Grif for a long moment. He lies there in his bed which has magically transformed into the softest thing in the universe and thoughtlessly soaks in the warm sunshine even though his bedroom window is only two feet away from a brick wall which he insists he prefers. 

He feels only bliss

Then: confused bliss. It’s slowly beginning to dawn on him that nothing’s really making sense, but it hasn’t really sunk in yet and he’s more comfortable than he’s felt in years. He feels  _ awesome.  _

And then: abrupt chilling disorientation. His eyes spring open as he realizes that his bed  _ isn’t  _ soft and his room is _ never  _ awash with golden shafts of sunlight and he can’t even hear traffic or the neighbours arguing or the dog down the block that never fucking shuts up barking. 

He has no idea where he is. It couldn’t possibly look more different from his own bedroom. He shoots up into a sitting position and then winces at the ache--

That _ distinctive _ ache. Did he--? Oh. Ah. It’s starting to come back to him now. He had sex. Which is unusual for him because he’s got more important shit to do approximately always, which sparks the memory of the reason  _ why _ he was convinced to have sex instead of going home to sleep or some shit. Rich fuck checking him out. A fat wad of cash. Red sportscar, fancy hotel, ripping his shirt off--

Grif’s half surprised that all of that wasn’t some strange sort of dream, a result of too much stress and too little sex. But here he is, lying in a gigantic bed in a gigantic room, naked as the day he was born. 

He can hear cooking sounds wafting in from the ajar door. Pancakes. His stomach rumbles. Fuck, he’s hungry. That’s right, he decided to skip having any sort of supper yesterday in favor of a glass of wine and vigorous sexual activity with a probably millionaire. 

Grif peeks over the bed to locate his clothes. The floor is spotless. His brow furrows for a moment before he spots all of his clothes folded neatly and lying atop a desk on the other side of the room. Grif is grinning crookedly before he even realizes it. Of course, Simmons cleaned up their abandoned strewn clothes as soon as he woke up. Obviously. He shouldn’t even bother being surprised any longer. 

He gets dressed, checking his pocket to see if the money’s still there. It is. Something inside of him relaxes a touch at that. 

He looks at the bedroom door. Could he get out of the hotel room without Simmons noticing him? 

Probably not. 

And those pancakes smell  _ really _ good. Grif’s always been one to try his luck when it comes to food. Ah, fuck it. 

Grif follows the smell of pancakes. 

There is a kitchen in the hotel room, and it is, naturally, beautiful and perfect , looking like it belongs in some glossy magazine instead of real life. Simmons is standing at the counter, glaring intently at the pancake he’s currently frying. There are two plates on the counter: one full of more or less acceptable and normal looking pancakes, the other full of either burned disasters or torn apart messes. The latter is far taller than the former. At least he’s trying? It’s pretty sweet, actually. 

Simmons is (a little disappointingly) already put together again. He’s wearing a new but very similar outfit to the one he wore yesterday, minus the blazer, and he’s clearly already showered. On that note, Grif should probably shower too. He’s not one of those people who needs to shower every day to feel clean, but he  _ did _ just have sex. Customers should not be able to tell which of the staff is getting some by smelling them--

Customers. Staff. Grif feels more refreshed and relaxed than he has in weeks. He turned his phone off last night. 

He’s late for work. 

“I’m  _ late for work!”  _

Simmons startles so badly he spears the pancake he was tentatively flipping over with the exacting, careful steadiness of a bomb disposal expert clean through. He looks at it with shocked dismay, and then at Grif. 

“What?” he asks, but Grif’s already turning around and running for the front door. 

“Work! The place I go to be miserable at for most of the day to make money so I can live! You see, I exchange services for profit which I use to purchase goods--”

“I know what work is!” Simmons snaps at him, hurrying after him out of the hotel room as Grif hastily slams through the door. “I have a  _ job.”  _

“Oh, great, so you’re not a retiree at least,” Grif says, and Simmons sputters. He’s only half paying attention to the conversation though, turning his phone on to see just how late he-- 

FUCK. 

He’s really late. 

“... I could give you a ride to where you work,” Simmons offers, interrupting a muttered stream of curses flowing from Grif’s mouth that he doesn’t notice until it’s spoken over. 

Grif slows down for just a moment as he thinks that offer over, and then quickly speeds back up again. There’s no time to waste. “Deal, but only if I get to drive,” he says, like he’s the one doing Simmons a favor here. “You drive your age.” 

“Obeying traffic laws and speed limits is not ‘lame’ or ‘outdated’--” Simmons says indignantly, determinedly setting out on a rant to hammer in just what an old cranky fucking man Grif slept with last night. In his defense, money. (In his further defense,  _ weirdly hot _ old cranky fucking man.) 

When they’re in the elevator, Simmons grabs his hand. Grif’s completely taken by surprise because-- really? Making out with and groping and fucking he can get, but why would Simmons want to  _ hold his hand?  _ Is he just… lonely? But then Simmons pulls out a pen and scrawls a string of numbers on his palm, and Grif’s mind goes  _ ah _ and a part of him relaxes and another part of him shrivels up a little. Just a little. Stupid. He should  _ not _ get so damn worked up over a little handholding like that. It’s just, it’s different. When a person wants to fuck it’s probably just because they want to fuck, but when they want to hold your hand it's because they want  _ you. _ Grif doesn’t even particularly want Simmons to want him. (Maybe he just wants to be wanted  _ at all, _ by anyone--)

“Um,” Simmons says, putting away his pen and casually avoiding eye contact. “So. If you want to, any time, if you feel like it--”

“Maybe, yeah,” he says, and then begins wondering if he actually meant that. Would he be paid again if they did this a second time? Would it be okay if he asked? Actually, his ride to work depended on Simmons’ good will right now, so maybe that could wait for later. To be honest, he’d been absolutely certain this would be a one time thing until this very moment. Had Simmons seriously had a good enough of a time to want to do that with Grif again? Did Grif? Well, Simmons had admitted to Grif being his first guy, so maybe he just didn’t know better. 

But  _ did _ Grif? Did he have a good enough of a time to want to do this again possibly for free? 

It had been nice. Hadn’t it? Sure, sorta weird and tense during some parts, but ultimately pretty nice. Simmons wasn’t so bad at all. And Grif had missed sex more than he’d noticed. But he was a busy guy. A  _ really _ busy guy. And Simmons was definitely just here for vacation, considering the hotel room. He was probably only going to be here for another week or two at the most and then disappear for who knew how many years, maybe never to return if he decided he’d rather go skiing on his holidays from now on. Was Grif going to have a few hours of free time in the next two weeks when he wasn’t exhausted? Somehow, he doubted it. 

Grif had liked it, but he didn’t have the time or the money for it, so he wasn’t going to get it. It was like that for a lot of things for Grif. 

So, that was that then. 

_ Maybe, yeah.  _

Grif wasn’t going to see Simmons again, after he drove him to work. Which was fine. Which didn’t add another little weight onto the invisible boulder on his shoulders. Which didn’t make the glitzy hotel lobby they were walking through a little dimmer. 

People met other people they sort of clicked with and then never saw them again all the time. This was normal. (Well, maybe not the ‘spontaneously got paid for sex’ part, but still.) 

At least he gets to see the red sportscar one last time. And then the valet gives Simmons the keys, who proceeds to give Grif the keys. He stares at them blankly for a moment before remembering the promise Simmons made to him less than five minutes ago which Grif had somehow managed to angst himself into forgetting--  _ but only if I get to drive.  _

He gets to  _ drive _ the sportscar before he casually says goodbye to Simmons forever like they might actually see each other again soon. The day brightens back up a little. 

Grif grabs the keys and tosses Simmons a smile on his way to the driver’s side of the door, which Simmons reflexively returns. He gets in and adjusts the seat because Simmons had fucking giraffe legs, checks the mirror, and puts on the seat belt. Turns on the ignition. Taps on the gas pedal as Simmons settles into the passenger seat, listens to this baby _ purr. _ God, he’s going to have to keep in mind that this thing definitely handles smoother and can go way faster than any car he’s ever been in before. It would be  _ so _ embarrassing to die in a fiery car crash in front of Simmons after he’d heckled him over his own driving skills so much. 

Grif drives out of the parking lot nicely and calmly. Glances at the digital clock on the dashboard. Tenses. Impatiently waits until they’re on the highway and then--

_ \--floors _ it--

Simmons is screaming and Grif feels giddy. The background becomes a blurred, colorful smear as they speed up and up, and Grif tunnel visions on the road just ahead of them, minutely twitching the steering wheel for turns in the road and outpacing car after car easily. Eat dust, you fucking turtles! The hare wasn’t going to slack off this time. He didn’t feel like it. 

“Jesus, Grif!” Simmons shrieks. “Slow down, do you want to die!?” 

You aren’t supposed to use dark millennial humor in front of baby boomers, or whatever the two of them are, so Grif bites down on his first response and instead just says, “Relax, I’ve got this.” 

Simmons whimpers and clutches at some handles or whatever, but Grif just focuses on getting to work in the fastest and _ (coincidentally)  _ funnest way possible. 

It’s still not fast enough. Simmons would have needed a DeLorean instead of a Ferrari for Grif to be able to pull that off, considering the fact that he was already late when he woke up. He just barely restrains himself from skidding into the parking lot (his boss might see it was him through the window and be even more pissed), and just responsibly parks like a boring loser instead. 

He unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to Simmons, who is looking distinctly pale and shellshocked, and says, “Thanks for the ride.” 

_ (Maybe, yeah.) _

And then he quickly kisses him before he can overthink it and gets out of the car and into the restaurant before Simmons can get so much as a word in edgewise. 

What follows is quite possibly one of the worst days of work he’s ever had. 

He’d been thinking about not taking that twelve hour shift now that he had that wad of cash in his pocket, but after being shouted at by his boss for fifteen minutes straight for being late (making him more late), he decides that it's probably not the wisest choice to tell his boss that he’s changed his mind about working extra today. 

At the end of the rant, just as Grif’s sensing that he might hopefully send him off to actually start doing his job, O’Malley… pauses. And sniffs. A sneer slowly takes over his face. Or rather, his already present sneer intensifies. 

“You reek of sex,” he spits, and Grif tenses. No time to shower this morning. Right. Shit. “Go take a shower in the wardrobe. And  _ get to work already!”  _

Well, his boss pretty obviously isn’t getting some, going off of that bitter expression that’s on his face as Grif tries not to actively run out of his office. He can’t say he’s surprised. 

So then he goes and uses that shower in the wardrobe that no one ever uses because communal showers are the worst, and he gets to work. 

It’s pretty obvious from the get go that his boss decided to meddle with his day as extra punishment. His senior wears an apologetic grimace as she assigns him twice as many tables as usual, but he just tightens his jaw and determinedly says nothing. He’ll just have to ride this out. His boss is bound to forget about this eventually, he still thinks Grif’s name is Griffin, for fuck’s sake.  _ One day at a time.  _ That’s how he’s lived for years now. 

It’s one hell of a day, though. 

It’s vacation season, one of his coworkers is out sick, and the restaurants packed. And he knows that if he messes up today, despite how frantic it is, his boss will take the opportunity to bite his head off about it. Is probably half hoping for it, in fact. He can’t afford to give his boss more to be pissed off at him about though, so he just starts living from hour to hour, and then from minute to minute. Works hard. Rushes. Tries to remember everything he’s told, write everything down, keep everything in mind. It’s a lot. It’s a whole fucking lot. 

He starts doing that thing where you try and calculate how many hours are left in your work day before you can take off your uniform and just go home already only  _ three hours _ in. He is fucked. 

It begins to become impossible to stop thinking about how he skipped breakfast this morning four hours in, how he just _ left _ those damned pancakes on the counter. 

Five hours in, he starts to get a headache. 

Six hours in, his feet really start aching. 

Seven hours in, this is when he’d usually get his break during a twelve hour shift. He doesn’t dare take it, considering the mood his boss is in and how busy the place is. 

Eight hours in, he gets a burn from a too hot plate, but he can cover it up with the edge of his sleeve so it’s fine. 

Nine hours. His headache has definitely transformed into a migraine, fuck, ow. 

Ten hours. Would anyone notice if he just snuck into the wardrobe for a nap? Absolutely yes. 

Eleven hours. Grif wants to  _ murder _ some of these customers.  _ Tourists.  _

Twelve. He’s so tired things are kind of blurry at the edges. 

He gets changed in a daze and drifts out of the restaurant, feeling a little like he’s just watching himself in a dream. He hasn’t been this tired in a while. He had a twelve hour shift only yesterday, but it hadn’t been half as stressful or frantic, which is really saying something. 

He slows to a stop where he would normally park his car. Oh. Right. Kai had it. He calls her. 

And calls her. 

And calls her. 

Fine. She was busy or asleep or she’d forgotten her phone somewhere again or whatever. He could take the bus-- no he couldn’t. It was too late. 

He stares into empty space for a long moment, absolutely nothing going through his head. 

He could walk home. 

For an hour. 

His feet hurt so much. 

He reaches a hand up to tiredly rub at his eyes and he sees a string of numbers on it, miraculously not rubbed off by the day’s events. 

_ Maybe, yeah.  _

He really doesn’t want to walk home. 

Grif calls Simmons because he is a huge lazy idiot and he accepts this about himself. 

“... Hello?” a groggy voice answers eventually. Grif woke him up. Awesome. 

“Hey,” he greets, rubbing at his closed eyes and wishing he was just home already. “Sorry for calling you like this, but the buses don’t really go this late and my sister’s borrowing my car and she isn’t answering her phone--”

“You want me to come pick you up?” Simmons sounds like he’s quickly waking up. 

“Yeah. Please.” Grif crosses his fingers. 

“Where are you?” 

“Don’t you remember where I work?” Grif bites back a crack about early onset dementia, because he’s trying to convince a guy who was fast asleep a moment ago to haul his ass out of bed to drive a potential booty call back to his home and then not have sex with him after having driven him to work in the first place (because seriously, if he thought tonight was going to end in sex again he had another thing coming to him), and also because that might be just a touch too tasteless considering the guy’s age. Mostly that first thing though. 

A moment of silence, and then: “You just got off work?” 

He sounds so surprised. 

“Yeah,” Grif says, too tired to spare any thoughts for how rich people live or anything besides his single minded drive to just get to bed already. Fuck, he hasn’t seen Kai in over 24 hours. This is ridiculous. “Can you come or not?” 

“Yeah.” He sounds quiet, and not in a just-woke-up way. “Yeah, I’m coming.” 

Grif lets a faint wave of gratitude wash over himself. Everything feels kind of faint right now, in comparison to the overwhelming exhaustion. By the time it occurs to him to thank him, Simmons has already hung up. 

Alright. Cool. Grif will just wait here then. Just fifteen minutes, right? He just has to… not fall asleep in public where anyone could wander by and reach into his pockets and grab his cell or wallet or--  _ his money. _ He’s suddenly wide awake for a moment, and his hand darts to his pocket. It’s there. It’s still there. 

He swears to god, just carrying it around is making him insanely nervous. He wants to get it to his cash hiding place back home already. He could use it to buy groceries, and his normal paychecks should be able to cover rent and bills on their own easily enough. 

Grif sways on his feet. He probably shouldn’t sit down. He’d been on his feet for twelve hours, he can handle another fifteen minutes. Was last night contributing to how shitty he felt or helping mitigate it? On the one hand, he got a full night of sleep. On the other, sex. That was basically working out, except not horrible. He doesn’t know how much it affected him because he can’t pick apart which aches are from work and which ones are from any other activities. 

Another wave of weariness washes over him like the tide over sand, and he immediately goes and finds a light pole in the parking lot to lean against. It should be fine so long as he remains standing, right? Yeah. Totally fine. He closes his eyes and waits. 

Drifts.

“Grif?” 

His eyes snap back open a moment--what feels like a moment-- later and he inhales sharply through his nose, his mind blank for a moment until what he’s seeing finally registers. Simmons, standing in front of  him, looking especially pale in the harsh lighting of the light pole, red-grey hair standing out more than ever, a concerned little frown highlighting the wrinkles and lines in his aging face. All of his traits exaggerated. 

“Hey,” Grif says after a too long pause, his mind sluggish. 

“Come on,” Simmons says. “It’s getting late, I’ll get you home. What’s your address?” 

He shouldn’t tell him his address. 

He tells him his address. 

Simmons doesn’t only open the car door for him this time, but takes a hold of his elbow and guides him to the vehicle as well. As they leave the circle of light of the light pole, his cyborg eye becomes a beacon, glowing in the dark, a dim little red streak of light that Grif watches out of the corner of his eye, strangely transfixed. He feels like he’s already dreaming. That’d be nice. 

He sinks into the car seat, and considers falling asleep on his way home. He can trust Simmons, right? More or less. He’s already had his chance to murder him and hadn’t taken it, at least. 

Before he can come to a decision, Simmons makes it for him by starting a goddamned conversation. 

“Have you been at work  _ all  _ day?” he asks, still frowning as he starts the car. 

“Yes,” Grif says, his first response in this discussion, a single syllable, and he already desperately wishes that this was over already. 

“... Why?” 

Uggggggggh. 

“Because some people have to take any hours they can get to make a living, Simmons.” 

That pinched looking expression on his face intensifies. Grif looks away, for the first time tired of that face (and the world in general), and instead just looks ahead at the small part of the world that the headlights make visible to them. 

“But I just gave you that money. You need more so much?” Looking away isn’t helping. The note of poorly hidden panicked worry in Simmons’ voice is clear. 

He probably won’t be able to get away with putting his hands over his ears. Wishes he had headphones. Thinks about turning on the radio. 

Grif doesn’t lift a finger. 

“I’d told my boss I would do the overtime yesterday, couldn’t just back out-- after being late, too. Asshole might’ve fired me.” 

“For something so minor? I mean, I know it’d be rude, but--”

“Waiters are expendable, Simmons.” 

A silence, for a long moment. Grif doesn’t precisely enjoy it because he might just be incapable of that emotion until he gets a few hours of sleep in him, but his suffering ebbs a little, becomes a less active thing. Neutral. Sleepy. 

“I could give you a better job,” he quietly says, interrupting the silence, and oh hey, when had his eyes closed? 

“Hmm?” Grif hums in question, brain still trying to understand what was just said. 

“I’d pay you as much as I did yesterday.  _ Daily.”  _

As the words sink in, Grif very quickly begins to wake up. 

“What?” he asks, sure he misheard. 

“Even if you don’t do anything for a day, you’ll still get your pay. You’ll be able to quit this job with an asshole boss, you won’t have to work as much as you can, you--”

“What would I be doing?” Grif asks sharply, interrupting him, too cynical and suspicious to feel hope for even a moment. There had to be a hitch. A fucking huge one. 

“Well--you--” 

Grif waits the stuttering out, intent and braced for impact. Simmons takes a deep breath, composing himself. 

“We’d… be in a relationship. You’d date me and I’d pay you--” 

“Stop the car.” 

Grif doesn’t look at Simmons for his reaction. 

So, he knows the hitch now, knows the lie about this entire too-good-to-be-true situation. Simmons saw him, wanted to try fucking a guy who seemed safe, and so bought a night with him. Enjoyed himself enough to leave an open ended possibility of doing it again at Grif’s discretion. Simple enough. But now he’s seen how fucking  _ desperate _ he is, how much he hates his job, how much he needs his job, how he didn’t have anyone to drive him home but Simmons. How willing Grif is to stick with something awful just because there’s no better alternative. And suddenly he wants more. He’s been identified as an easy target, and he’s going to be taken advantage of. 

Well, Grif can be a spiteful fuck when he wants to be. He’s doing just tolerable waiting tables, thanks. 

“I… don’t you want me to get you home first at least--” he croaks. 

“We’re here.” They are. Only a few houses away. Fortunate. Grif had been prepared to walk home from much further away. 

Simmons slows the car to a stop. 

“Grif,” he says, and Grif starts unbuckling his seatbelt. “I’m so--”

“Look,” he cuts him off, not wanting to hear anything more, wanting this awful day to just be over already for the millionth time. “I met you  _ last night, _ and now you’re proposing some kind of-- sugar daddy shit? I’m pretty sure there’s an app for that, dude. Bye. Let’s not do this again.” 

‘This’ being any sort of interaction between the two of them, but he’ll just go ahead and trust Simmons to read the signals he’s giving off and catch that one himself. He gets out and slams the door behind him, carefully not looking at whatever expression Simmons is wearing the entire time. 

He finally gets home. 

“Bro?” Kai calls out, and something inside of himself relaxes just a miniscule amount. She pops her head in from the kitchen, eyebrows raised. “Who’s the hot fucking ride?” 

So, she’d seen him get fucking chauffeured home in a Ferrari. How exactly was he going to explain that one? Somehow, he didn’t think ‘I got an Uber’ would cut it. 

When floundering for a lie, settle for something close to the truth. 

“Just some guy trying to flirt,” he says dismissively, toeing his shoes off, smelling pizza. So he won’t have to make supper at least, thank god. Straight to bed it is. 

“Oh?” Kai asks, interest clearly piqued. The last time Grif was flirted with was years ago. “How was he?” 

The truth: “Ridiculously bad at it.” 


	3. Emotional Terrorism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hi everyone!” the man greets them. “You’re all probably wondering what the heck’s going on here.”
> 
> Yes, he is.

Life moves on. Grif eats, he showers, and he even manages to have half of a conversation with Kai before she shoves him in the direction of his bedroom, citing how he’d bitched about that crick in his neck the last time she’d let him fall asleep on the couch.

He goes back to work. Not a twelve hour shift this time, but O’Malley still spares him an extra glare and a few more tables to boot, so he clearly still feels slighted from yesterday. Whatever. Grif’s just glad he hasn’t seen or heard from Simmons yet, despite the fact that the guy knows where he works, where he lives, and his fucking phone number. Wow, Grif really hadn’t been careful there.

Then, on Thursday, he gets a text telling him not to come in at all. For a moment his mind’s full of nothing but panic and _oh fuck I’m fired,_ but then he quickly calms himself down. If O’Malley was going to fire him, he’d do it the usual way: at the end of an almost hour long shouting rant in his office about all of his flaws and shortcomings, followed by his ridiculous villain laughter. He texts some of his coworkers to double check, and they all confirm that they got the same text. So it’s not about him. Good.

Grif takes the opportunity and enjoys his free day. Sleeps in late. Cleans up a _little._ Buys some good food with that money he got from Simmons even though he should definitely be scrimping and saving it. He won’t be getting any more of it, after all. Hangs out with a pleasantly surprised Kai. 

He doesn’t get a text the next day to not come in again, he doesn’t want to take the risk of assuming even though that free day had been _so_ good and he wants fifty more of them immediately, and so he goes.

 _That’s_ when shit gets weird.

The entire staff is called to the biggest room in the restaurant, where the customers eat, still half an hour before they open. There’s an unfamiliar man there that looks familiar. He’s wearing a purple polo and slacks, not a cook or waiter uniform, but clearly a uniform from how cleanly pressed it is. But there’s only one person who works here that isn’t a cook or a waiter and--

Grif realizes that O’Malley isn’t in the room.

“Hi everyone!” the man greets them. “You’re all probably wondering what the heck’s going on here.”

Yes, he is.

“Well, don’t worry, it’s only good things! The restaurant chain has experienced a complete change in ownership! None of you will be losing your jobs, but there’ll definitely be some changes. For one, I’m your new manager here now.”

There’s an immediate buzz of murmuring, hushed, incredulous and disbelievingly _happy_ whispering. O’Malley was not well liked.

“I’m Franklin Dufresne, but all of my friends call me Doc! And seeing as you’re all my employees, that makes us friends. That another change: the company policy regarding employees. You’ll all be receiving permanent raises, subordinate mistreatment will be harshly punished and allegations of such will be taking absolutely seriously, so don’t be afraid to speak up if I accidentally make you uncomfortable! Although I do hope you’ll try and resolve things with me first,” Doc laughs. No one else laughs with him, too stunned to properly react. Doc awkwardly clears his throat.

Someone raises their hand. “Um… sir?”

“Doc,” Doc corrects them.

“... Doc,” they nervously say instead, like it’s a trap or something. “You look sort of familiar…?”

Not really what Grif’s most interested in right now. Like for example: how _big_ of a raise, exactly?

“Oh, that’s probably because me and O’Malley are twins,” Doc says nonchalantly, effortlessly stunning the entire staff into silence once again. Jesus Christ, was this some kind of Jekyll and Hyde situation? Grif recognizes the resemblance now. He hadn’t been able to make the connection before because Doc was smiling, which definitely wasn’t O’Malley’s style. “Bit of a jerk, am I right? Well, I better not keep you all from your work much longer, we’re opening in only twenty minutes!”

Slowly, the staff starts to leave for their posts. Belatedly, Doc calls something out that makes Grif stiffen with sudden incredulous suspicion: “Oh, and remember our new company slogan! _No one is expendable!”_

* * *

 During his break, Grif turns to the only one he knows he’ll always be able to depend on no matter what: Google. (Unless the wifi’s acting up…)

He types in his restaurant chain's name, and then _bought by._

What he gets is a very confused article debating why a corporation that’s specialized in computer software for the last thirty years suddenly bought an entire restaurant chain overnight. The corporation's name? Simmons Corp.

Grif almost has an aneurysm.

He stares at his phone feeling some sort of emotion that he can’t identify but that is VERY intense. Is it indignation? It must be indignation, he decides. Because this is definitely, absolutely not a coincidence. Simmons bought his entire fucking restaurant chain without so much as a warning text just because Grif worked there. What is this? What the HELL is this!?

Grif’s still staring at his phone (whose screen has gone dark by now) with breathless rage when Doc taps him on his shoulder.

“Um, Grif? Your break’s been over for five minutes now…” he says leadingly.

“I’m sick,” he responds immediately without even thinking about it. “I’m horribly sick and if you don’t let me go home right now I think I might puke on your shoes.”

“Oh!” Doc says. “Okay! You best go home then, load up on electrolytes and avoid gluten!”

Grif doesn’t even spare a moment to be happy about what a fucking idiot his new boss is, apparently, and just rushes into the wardrobe and changes with sharp, jerky movements. He is _not_ letting this lie until the end of his shift. He is not letting this lie for _another goddamned second._

He scrolls through his phone’s call history until he finds when he dialed Simmons, and rings him up as he tries to buckle himself into his car one handed. He’s already zooming out of the parking lot by the time Simmons picks up.

“Grif?” he asks, sounding unbearably nervous and some other things that Grif doesn’t bother even trying to notice.

“Are you at your hotel?”

“Um, yes--”

“Then stay there!” he snaps, and then ends the call because he wants to shout demands for answers at him in person. He idly wishes he still had a flip phone he could satisfyingly slap closed.

He doesn’t let his anger cool off like it always so easily does, and instead just keeps driving fast, taking turns more sharply than is probably warranted.

He was right. He can make it from work to Simmons’ hotel in five.

He throws his keys at the valet without even looking like of course he should be here, impatiently walks straight past the doorman before he can speak so much of a word about how Grif looks like he maybe doesn’t belong here, and heads straight past reception for the elevator.

“Sir--!” the woman at the desk cries out after him, rising from her chair.

“Call Simmons on the top floor, he’s expecting me,” he replies flatly, hitting the door for the elevator and then entering. There’s a woman wearing a dead fox on her shoulders inside who looks like she was intending to go further up before she got out, who abruptly and mysteriously decides that she’d rather take the stairs today.

Wait out the elevator music. Don’t remember that conversation about how frustrated it made Simmons. Sweep out of the elevator and down the hallway past three oak doors. Don’t remember how nervous he had been and how Simmons had been just about twice as nervous, which had helped somehow. Angry. _Stay angry._

Why is he so bad at something so simple?

He opens the right door, not even thinking to check if it’s locked first.

 _“Okay,”_ he says before he’s even laid on Simmons. “You just bought my entire restaurant chain like a crazy person after I told you I wanted nothing more to do with you. What is _up!?”_

And then he finally sees Simmons, sitting on his stupid, luxurious couch in one of his stupid, luxurious suits. He looks guilty as fuck.

“I’m sorry!” Simmons bursts out, standing up. “I didn’t mean for you to know!”

Which is one of the single most infuriating things he’s ever heard in his life. “You mean you didn’t mean to get caught? Oh, well in that case!”

Simmons manages to look increasingly distressed. “That’s-- that’s not what I mean, I-- I didn’t want you to know because I didn’t want you to think that it was a bribe! Because it isn’t!”

Not a bribe. Right, because Simmons having control of where he worked was a good thing?

… Well, he had already given him a raise and the dumbest boss in the universe, but still. That could change at any time.

“I swear I wasn’t ever going to talk to you or see you again,” Simmons says, and Grif spares a moment to be very tired of himself because how many times had _he_ told himself exactly that? And here he is, seeing Simmons again. Every time he’s seen Simmons again after vowing he’d never so much as think about the guy again, it had been Grif reaching out to him as well.

… Huh. He hadn’t thought about that until now.

No. _No._ Hold on to that anger. Simmons had propositioned him, Simmons had given him his number, and Simmons had _bought his restaurant._ This was not fine! This was on _purpose._

“I just… didn’t want to leave you like that,” he goes on, looking as downcast as Grif’s ever seen someone look. “Overworked and overstressed and… you looked really tired. I just wanted to know that you were fine before I left, or else I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about you.”

“I hate you so much,” Grif says, and then kisses him.

Simmons stiffens against him, surprised, and then he sinks into the kiss almost gratefully, relieved, arms wrapping around him. This _fucker._ Grif wants to wreck him.

He shoves him down onto the couch, looking down at him, already feeling breathless, his blood boiling in a different way than it had been only moments ago. Simmons leans against the couch and looks up at him with wide eyes, like he can’t possibly predict what Grif will do next.

An annoyed, almost needy, urgent sound escapes him and he kneels down in front of Simmons, between his knees, and he hears Simmons suck in a breath as he goes for his belt buckle.

“Um,” he says, high pitched.

“If you want me to stop, say it,” he shoots off waspishly, tossing the belt off to the side.

He doubts Simmons will stop him; he’s already hard. Good job on the spontaneous erection, senior citizen.

“You don’t have to-- oh my god, what’s happening.”

Grif would kind of like to know that as well. His moods haven’t changed this quickly since that time he washed down a handful of caffeine pills with three cans of Redbull.

He wants to absolutely ruin Simmons.

He wants to make Simmons feel so good he can’t stand it.

He wants to make Simmons just _shut up already._ He talks too much and makes Grif feel too many things and it is not okay! How dares he, rolling into Hawaii with his stupid hair and his stupid cyborg limbs and his stupid money and his stupid car and his stupid horrendous cooking creations and awkward conversational skills and _caring about Grif._

It’s emotional terrorism, is what it is.

He gets Simmons’ dick out and swallows him down. Another sharp inhalation, and there are suddenly hands in his hair, gripping tight close to his scalp, and the sting feels good enough that he doesn’t hesitate as he sinks his mouth all the way down to the base of Simmons.

“Fuck,” Simmons breathes. _“Grif.”_

He closes his eyes and hums in response. Simmons cards his organic fingers through his hair, his cyborg one maintaining its grip, nails scratching lightly across his scalp in a way that makes his toes curl.

“You’re so,” Simmons says, but instead of trailing off like he usually does he finishes, “amazing.”

Oh, no.

“And good. At this, and-- other things. Oh my god, do that again.”

Grif has horribly miscalculated. He wanted to make Simmons shut up but now his mouth is full and Simmons’ isn’t and he can’t just pull off his dick to tell him to shut up or talk over him because he _doesn’t want to pull off his dick goddamnit._

He sucks harder, but instead of breaking off or interrupting Simmons it apparently just inspires him to talk more bullshit about how great Grif is.

“You’re so…” a breath to work up the courage and concentration to finish the sentence, _“hot._ Seriously. And you’ve, _oh,_ been so nice about this--” no he hasn’t, he’s been assuming the worst left and right, “--and you’re funny and you make me feel so stupid--” was that his roundabout way of calling Grif smart? “--and I _really_ like talking to you.”

That hand that’s been running across his scalp settles on the back of his neck, possessive and affectionate.

“And doing _this_ with you.”

Grif feels so weak.

He glances up at Simmons through his lashes, and his face is bright red but his expression is raw and vulnerable and tender and sort of amazed and Grif really hates this man and the shit he says and the faces he makes while he says it.

He tries to just focus on making Simmons come, but he doesn’t shut up the entire time, even if he grows less coherent. Broken praise pours from his lips, repeated compliments and endearments so embarrassing they make Grif want to sink down into the floor at the same time as something lights up inside of him.

He’s so bad at staying angry at people.

This man is ridiculous, and dumb, and the most mortifying and mortified person on the planet. But Grif’s starting to think he probably isn’t a manipulative predator, even if he hasn’t known him for long. And this--

“Grif,” Simmons gasps, hands tightening in his hair, on the nape of his neck, _“Grif,_ I’m going to--”

Grif hums again and doesn’t pull away when Simmons comes with a cry.

\--this is pretty damn nice.

Simmons finishes, his hands loosening their vice like grips (Grif doubts he’d have been able to pull away if he tried no matter what Simmons said, the idiot), and Grif licks his lips, eyes intent, still wired. Simmons looks at him with blown out half lidded eyes, flushed and breathing heavily.

“Come here,” he tells him softly, and Grif gets up off the floor and onto the couch.

Distantly, he thinks that Simmons should just roll over and sleep now and leave Grif to finish on his own seeing as he’s already been taken care of. But Simmons doesn’t seem to consider that possibility for even a moment, and Grif certainly isn’t going to try and convince him _not_ to lick his palm and shove his hand down Grif’s pants, holy _shit._

Those lovely long fingers wrap around him, and his breath hitches as a thousand different ideas for what those hands could be doing instead flood his mind. Fingering him, in his hair, scratching his back bright with sharp little bites of pain, in his _mouth,_ fuck why does Grif like his hands so much?

“You deserve,” Simmons breathes into his ear, leaning close into him, “nice expensive things, and money, and to relax, and to come--”

“Shut up,” Grif slurs right back at him, mouth finally free but jaw aching and tired and his focus taken almost entirely up with what Simmons is doing to his dick right now.

His hands feel so nice. Simmons kisses his ear, his neck, the side of his face, and sighs fond words at him even though he’s already come, and geez this guy can really talk.

Grif gives in and just closes his eyes and clings to Simmons as he works him over, lets him say whatever he wants to say even though it’s obviously too much, clearly exaggerated and wrong and it feels good anyways.

When he comes it’s like a starburst behind his eyelids, wiping his mind clean for one long moment, and he feels boneless and Simmons is guiding him to lie down on the couch.

Simmons leaves and Grif makes a helpless sound of protest and squints his eyes open to glare at him.

“Be _right_ back,” he says, holding a hand covered in come away from himself.

Pfft. Couldn’t even handle a little semen. What a neat freak.

“Fine,” Grif grumbles, reluctantly accepting the explanation and closing his eyes again. He hears the sound of rushing water from the kitchen, footsteps, and then feels a tugging at his feet. Simmons is taking his shoes off.

Grif likes this guy way too much.

After Simmons presumably neatly lines Grif’s shoes up, he lies down with him. The couch is extravagant enough that the both of them actually fit, but there’s definitely some snuggling involved. Grif wraps his arm around Simmons and feels his hot breath hit the top of his head.

This definitely wasn’t what he’d thought would happen when he stormed into Simmons’ hotel room. Or when he’d coldly told him to stop the car. Or when he’d tiredly come to the conclusion that he just didn’t have the time for him.

Grif feels Simmons curl a strand of his hair on one of his fingers.

Well, just because he didn’t think it would happen doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome. Quite the opposite, actually. He is a pessimist, after all.


	4. Brunch Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grif wonders what the hell kind of weird ass relationship he’s landed himself in.

It’s still the middle of the day, and Grif got a lot of rest yesterday, so it’s less of a morning after and more waking up from a nap. A really _good_ nap. The orgasm seriously upped the quality of said nap, definitely, and the company certainly doesn’t hurt either. He hasn’t ever really cuddled with someone like this before, he thinks. He likes it.

He wakes up before Simmons this time, and he lets himself wake slowly with the warm weight of Simmons in his arms. They’ve shifted into a spooning position at some point during their nap, and if Grif spreads his palm just so across Simmons’ chest he can feel his steady heartbeat, the slow rise and fall of his chest.

Grif wonders what the hell kind of weird ass relationship he’s landed himself in.

He could get up and get a breakfast ready for Simmons like he had done for him, show him how to _really_ make a pancake. But he’s trapped between the back of the couch and Simmons’ warm body, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to escape without waking him, so fuck it. Not to mention how god damned comfortable Grif is right where he is. Screw it, Simmons probably has some absurdly expensive cereal squirreled away somewhere anyways. Ooh, or they could do room service. Grif’s never done that before.

Is he being presumptive right now? On the one hand, Simmons had thrown a _lot_ of flowery compliments and gestures of care at him yesterday-- a few hours ago (how long have they been sleeping?). On the other, Grif was sucking his dick for the majority of those compliments, so.

And… okay, he tries to see this from Simmons’ point of view. Grif coldly and without hesitation rejects him, more or less tells him to never contact him again. Grif bursts into his hotel room some days later furious about him buying his restaurant, accusations of scumbaggery and declarations of hatred ready at hand. And then after Simmons pleads his case he abruptly kisses him, sucks his dick, tells him to shut up when he says nice things to him, gets a handjob, and falls asleep on his couch spooning him.

… God he sounds so unstable when he phrases the situation… in the most objective way he possibly can like that.

Grif wonders what the hell kind of weird ass relationship _Simmons_ thinks he’s landed himself in.

Eventually, Simmons stirs and Grif has to force himself not to tense up as the answer to that question inevitably closes in.

“Oh god damn it,” Simmons mumbles sleepily. “This is going to wreak havoc on my circadian rhythm.”

“You’re on vacation, dude,” Grif replies into the back of his neck. “Time is a social construct and you can sleep basically any time you want to now.”

Simmons just groans at him.

They get up after a while, mostly because Simmons seems loathe to spend more of the day sleeping when that obviously isn’t Designated Sleeping Time, and because Grif has suddenly become completely incapable of feeling comfortable any longer now that he knows that Simmons is awake and thinking and drawing conclusions and forming opinions and Jesus Christ why can’t he just be a mindreader, everything would be so much easier then.

“So,” Grif says behind a only partially faked yawn, “what d’you wanna do for breakfast? Order out, try and make something, what.” Surreptitiously glancing at him out of the corner of his eye like nothing’s wrong or weird, waiting to see his reaction to Grif’s apparent assumption that he isn’t just going to immediately leave.

Simmons frowns at him, and Grif hurriedly forces himself to look as casually bored as possible, which is _very_ casually bored for your information.

Simmons looks down at his wristwatch that probably costs more than Grif’s actual human life.

“It’s _two PM,”_ he says, sounding disgruntled and incredulous. “That is _not_ breakfast.”

Simmons has to stop throwing emotional whiplash at him like this, seriously.

“Lunch then.” He shrugs.

“It isn’t quite lunch time either.”

Grif stops, thinks. “Oh shit,” he says, realization dawning over him. “Is it _brunch time?”_

“Anywhere from eleven AM to three PM is officially recognized as an acceptable time to brunch, yes--”

“Shit!” he says, turning to Simmons with a half playful smile tugging on his mouth, eyebrows raised. He leans in conspiratorially. “I’ve never had brunch before.”

Simmons is looking at his mouth now. Grif leans back (what the hell kind of weird ass relationship--), but his smile doesn’t fade in the slightest. All signs point to Simmons _not_ being mad at him. It’s a relief, and maybe it shouldn’t be, maybe it should have been obvious from the start for him, but. He likes seeing the evidence anyways.

“No pressure,” he adds belatedly, not really thinking about it.

He can almost visibly see the pressure drop onto Simmons’ shoulder like an anvil. Grif’s immediate response is to roll his eyes.

“I’m making pancakes,” Simmons says with the grim, determined expression of someone about to wade out onto the frontlines of an active battleground.

Well, Grif supposes he’s had some practice with those at least once.

“Let me help,” he says, because while the idea of willingly volunteering for something makes him feel almost downright dissociative, he wants to be close to Simmons right now, wants to make brunch pancakes with him after waking up spooning on the couch together after some great makeup sex, wants to _not_ let himself lie down on the couch alone, stare at the wall, and overthink shit until he’s so worried he doesn’t even feel worried any longer, or anything at all.

Simmons opens his mouth to protest.

“I promise I’ll do the bare minimum,” he says as solemnly as he can manage, even putting his hand to his chest and raising the other in the air like he’s pledging to a bible.

Simmons scrunches up his face at him. “... I don’t know if that’s good or not.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and then they go and make pancakes in the middle of the day. It’s like the ridiculous idea of what he thought dating and being in love was when he was seven, except they aren’t dating or in love and he should stop this train of thought right now.

Simmons idly wipes at his face and leaves behind a smudge of flour that he doesn’t seem to notice.

“What are we?” escapes his mouth like vomit, like the shittiest, lowest effort kind of serial drama TV show, and then he almost immediately gags at the taste of the words that just left his mouth. _Holy shit,_ way to keep it casual, Grif.

Simmons looks as startled as if Grif had just seriously revealed that he’d been a werewolf this whole time. Every fiber of his being wants to cringe and he’s desperately fighting against it for some reason. If he doesn’t look embarrassed, maybe it’ll be less embarrassing?

His current emotional state indicates no.

“Oh, god,” Simmons says, beginning to look horrified. “You don’t know either?”

Grif blinks.

“Because I was counting on you knowing! _I_ don’t know.”

_If I don’t know what we are and you don’t know what we are, then who’s flying the relationship?_

A snorts break free from Grif so suddenly he doesn’t even have the time for a fleeting thought about suppressing it, startled loose.

He just.

He looks so _distressed._

Simmons looks startled all over again at the snort, which shakes another one lose from Grif, and pretty soon he has to turn away, shoulders shaking, to try and compose himself.

“H--hey, don’t laugh at me! You don’t know either!”

“That--that’s what makes it so funny!” That and his _face._

He gets a hold of himself enough to tentatively look behind him, is met by Simmons actually, literally _pouting,_ and has to immediately turn back around to take another moment for himself. It might be that the majority of the reason why Grif likes his face so much is because of the wonderful expressions it makes.

Grif is thankfully saved from repeating the cycle of seeing whatever expression Simmons is making now and fucking losing it again by Simmons noticing that the pancake they’d been in the process of frying is burning and proceeding to act like the entire kitchen’s burst into fire and the whole meal is ruined.

Grif feels ridiculously fond.

They manage to scrape the burned disaster pancake off of the frying pan and get started on the new one. Simmons watches this one like a hawk, which is why Grif feels safe enough to broach the subject again. This is one conversation he’d rather avoid eye contact for, thanks.

“Seriously though, what’s our relationship status?”

“Well,” Simmons says after a long moment of frowning thoughtfully at the pancake. “If neither of us knows, I guess we can just decide, right?”

Can it really be that easy? “That tracks,” he says much more confidently than he feels.

And then there’s a long awkward moment in which Grif watches Simmons try not to squirm, broken up briefly by a spirited try at a pancake flip.

“I know you don’t like-- the money thing--”

Grif loves money, actually. He’s desperately obsessed with it, just like everyone in his shitty neighborhood with their shitty jobs and their shitty debts. He tries to think about how to explain this, what went through Grif’s head in Simmons’ car on the way home after work without outright saying _I assumed you were a fucking monster._

Emotional conversations. _Eesh._

“I’m definitely not opposed to money, actually. I like it a lot. I just…” Was startled. Didn’t know what to think. Drew some pretty unfortunate conclusions. “It doesn’t matter anyways. You’re not gonna be my sugar daddy because I’m not moving away from Hawaii.” Kai loves Hawaii. She loves the weather and the beaches and her stupid friends, and she’s fifteen and he’s heard that most people her age hate switching schools, resent their parents for it. He desperately doesn’t want for her to resent him.

Simmons chokes, coughs, blushes and stares with wide eyes at the pancake. Grif raises an eyebrow at him, unseen. _“Sugar daddy--”_ he says, kind of high pitched.

“You want to pay me money to fuck you. If it quacks like a duck, dude.”

Grif loses Simmons to mortification for a while, which is fine. He tears off a piece of the ruined pancake, eats it, and then grimaces and wonders why he ate it.

“I could move,” Simmons says when he regains the ability to form coherent sentences, stilted and sudden. “To Hawaii.”

Simmons’ suggestion hasn’t even sunk in yet when he protests it. “But. You’re here on vacation.”

“It’s nice here,” Simmons says. “I’ll get used to putting on suntan lotion before going outside every day.”

The attempt at injecting some levity into this way too serious to be comfortable discussion is unfortunately not successful, because Simmons literally just offered to pick up his entire life and move to an island where he doesn’t seem to know anyone but Grif after knowing him for less than a week. Holy shit, how little does he have going on in his life? (How much does he like Grif?)

If Simmons moves to Hawaii and shit doesn’t work out between the two of them--

Relax. Relax. Simmons is richer than god. The cost of property at a highly famous island wouldn’t even touch him. He bought a restaurant chain only days ago like it was nothing. If it didn’t work out, Simmons would just have a vacation home at Hawaii now. Grif avoided the fancier neighborhoods anyways, too out of his way. They probably wouldn’t bump into each other.

 _Relax._ And stop planning damage control for the breakup, they aren’t even dating yet.

“So you really want to… date me, then?” he asks, feeling way too hopeful.

“You really want to accept my money?” Simmons asks, sounding way too hopeful.

They’re both clearly idiots, so the answer to both of those questions is yes.

And, he thinks, Simmons owns an entire corporation. He’s a CEO, either a millionaire or a billionaire, in the public eye in certain circles at least. Meaning: it’s important he protects his reputation. Meaning: it would be a huge scandal if it got out that he’s paying some guy less than half his age for sex. Meaning: Grif has a mutual self destruct button, leverage, at least a sliver of power just in case.

(Meaning: Simmons is taking a stupidly huge risk on him, and is apparently happy to do it.)

Fine. Grif will give the sugar daddy thing a go, if it’s with Simmons.

Instead of saying any of that though, he says: “I think the pancake’s burning.”

“FUCK!”

Between the two of them, they end up with seven edible pancakes. Simmons takes two and Grif takes the remaining five because he refuses to feel shame when it comes to food and Simmons is absurdly rich anyways, he can order some caviar or ostrich eggs if he decides he needs more.

They’re surprisingly good. Grif can make pancakes, has made pancakes, but it’s been a long fucking while. He tends towards fast and easy to make food, takeout, frozen pizzas, microwaveable burritos, cereal that’s basically just ninety percent sugar and ten percent food coloring and fun shapes. Homemade food tastes pretty good though, he remembers, even if he’s pretty sure they just did a mediocre job at best.

“So, how’s the new boss?” Simmons asks him over brunch.

Grif chokes on his juice a little, but not enough so that he can’t play it off. “My new--?”

Somehow, he hadn’t _quite_ made the connection between Simmons buying his restaurant and him immediately getting a new manager. Like, sure, Simmons bought the restaurant and Grif got a new boss in the shuffle of changing management, changing company values. But Simmons bought the company and then _deliberately_ went out of his way to _specifically_ fire _his_ boss?

“Oh my god,” he says. “You fired my boss because I offhandedly called him an asshole once.”

This is way too much power.

Simmons flushes. “No! There was a lot of circumstantial evidence surrounding that one offhand comment supporting your claim that he was an asshole.”

“So you had him fired.”

“Yyyyes?” Simmons looks like he’s half expecting/dreading for this to abruptly turn into another argument, like how Grif had turned cold on a dime back in the car on his way home, or burst into his place shouting only some hours ago.

Grif ruefully reigns in his incredulous expression a little. He doesn’t want Simmons to think he’s the kind of guy that starts arguments left and right over every little thing-- he isn’t. But is this a _little_ thing?

Hang on, it doesn’t matter whether it’s little or not because Grif is definitely not going to get pissed over O’Malley’s behalf.

“‘Kay,” he says with a shrug and turns back to his pancakes, and pretends not to notice Simmons letting out a whoosh of relieved air.

“... But how is he though?”

“I’ve gotta admit, it was a pretty ballsy move of you to hire the last guy’s twin brother. It’s certainly gonna spice up their Thanksgiving dinners.”

Simmons rapidly blinks at him for a moment. _“Really?_ I did that?”

“Did you not notice their shared last name? Or eerily similar photos?”

“It’s not like I handled the applications! I just told them--”

“Who’s them?”

“I don’t know,” Simmons waves the air a little in a gesture of unconcern, “someone. Someone that works for me. Anyways.”

 _Anyways._ Rich people.

“I just told them to find someone nice who’s really into all of that feelgood office cooperation buzz word stuff nowadays. My board members complain about those types all of the time.”

Grif narrows his eyes. “... If Doc makes us do trust fall exercises or something--” he abruptly remembers himself, “--then _don’t_ fire him, but holy shit I will be exasperated.”

“Noted. Anyways, the new manager?”

“I’m actually supposed to be at work right now but he let me off early because I said I was sick, which has worked for me with O’Malley approximately zero times.”

Simmons smiles, and it’s nice. “Abusing your powers already?”

Grif has _power_ now. Admittedly, given power, but power all the same, and a shitload of it too considering how indulgent Simmons has been of him so far. (Let’s see how long that lasts.)

“Well, I did have a serious case of ‘needing to shout at you’.” Is it okay if he jokes about that yet? He isn’t gonna walk on eggshells around Simmons forever, that sounds like a nerve wracking relationship, but it was also admittedly, again, only _a few hours ago._

Simmons’ eyes immediately drop to Grif’s mouth, and a blush quickly spreads across his face before he hurriedly looks away.

What--?

Grif remembers that very shortly after shouting at Simmons, practically right in the middle of shouting at him, actually, he’d suddenly dropped to his knees and started sucking Simmons off.

Simmons is thinking about Grif blowing him _right now,_ across the table from him. Remembering it.

Grif tries not to squirm in his seat at the sudden heat in his belly, finds his eyes avoiding Simmons as well now all of a sudden. Makes himself look back at him.

Simmons hasn’t had a chance to clean himself up yet like he had the last time they’d had sex. The most he’s done is wash his hands and zip up his fly. His hair is still sleep-tousled, his clothes rumpled from sleeping in them, his belt missing, presumably still lying on the living room floor where Grif tossed it somewhere. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the most undone Grif’s seen him while his brainpower hasn’t been flushed down the drain by lust yet. That’s quickly starting to change though, the longer he thinks about Simmons thinking _things_ about Grif while he’s sitting only a few feet away.

Okay, this is ridiculous, he’s had great sex two times this week and one of those was _today._ Isn’t breaking a dry spell supposed to help _calm shit down_ in the pants department? Grif hasn’t consistently thought about sex so much since he was fifteen.

Maybe stress helped distract him. Maybe now that the stress is starting to lessen his body’s fucking screeching at him to make up for lost time already.

Now is so not the time. He’s having _brunch_ for god’s sake.

They’re alone, they have nowhere to be, no one expecting them to be anywhere any time soon, no obligations for the moment-- why is he trying to convince himself not to do this now again?

Grif has yet to spend longer than an hour in Simmons’ presence without it resulting in sex.

So? What’s so bad about that? Isn’t that the whole point?

Grif pretends not to notice Simmons’ reaction and eats a bite of the pancakes the two of them made together. Doesn’t really taste it. He notices that he’s twirling a lock of his hair around his finger, which is a fucking _Kai_ move, not him, dear Christ. He stops immediately. Remembers Simmons playing with his hair before he fell asleep for some reason.

He opens his mouth and instead of saying anything even vaguely suggestive, he says: “So do hotels this fancy have netflix or what? Because if the answer’s no then you’ll be seriously crushing some of my preconceived notions about what it’s like to be crazy rich.”

Simmons blinks at him, his train of thought clearly knocked off of the sexy rails they’d been on just a moment ago. “Uh, no, sorry.”

“Damn.” Grif takes another bite of pancake. It tastes sweet. They’d poured too much sugar in, probably (not in Grif’s opinion though). “Next you’ll tell me you don’t pour a bunch of dollars into your clawfooted bathtub and bathe in it.”

“The bathroom interior decor is modern stylish minimalism, and I would get so many papercuts. But I do have netflix on my iPad though,” he offers. “You want to watch something?”

“Order some popcorn and I’ll find something for us,” he says, and flashes Simmons a grin. Simmons had opened his mouth to say something, but abruptly closes it at that and instead just vaguely drifts in the direction of the phone after handing him his unlocked iPad. To call for room service, presumably. _(Abusing your powers already?)_

Grif finishes his pancakes, heads for the couch, and looks at the suggestions category because he’s feeling that particular mixture of mean and curious.

Top suggestion: Jupiter Ascending.

Clearly the lesson here is to never let your boyfriend (or sugar baby, whatever) use your netflix unsupervised. Also that shoving a fist into your mouth isn’t _that_ great at muffling laughter. Simmons finishes his phone call to see what the fuss is about, sees the screen, and immediately starts doing his flustered-desperate-recovery thing that really doesn’t do anything but dig him a deeper hole.

“So what you’re saying is,” Grif gasps, “this isn’t weird because you just watch every movie with Channing Tatum in it.”

“Yes! Y--yes?” Grif has never heard someone go from sounding so triumphant to so doubtful so quickly.

“I never would’ve guessed he was your type, babe.” A Channing Tatum lookalike Grif is most definitely not.

And he’s right back to panicked justifications. “I just like him as an actor!”

“You mean you just like his pecs. No it’s alright I promise I’m not jealous, those things are bigger than my head--”

Someone knocks on the door and Simmons escapes like a drowning man being thrown an unexpected lifeline, and Grif’s snickering has finally had the time to die down by the time Simmons comes back in, now holding a bowl full of popcorn.

“Star Trek or Star Wars?” he asks him, reaching imploringly for the bowl as he scooches aside on the couch to make room for Simmons.

“Which versions are we talking about here?” he asks, which was the correct answer that Grif had not been looking for.

They start a heated debate about exactly which Star Trek or Star Wars they’re going to watch as Simmons sits down, sits close so he can see the screen as well, so he can share the bowl. Grif slumps and leans against him as he tilts the screen in Simmons’ direction. Simmons puts his arm around him and he settles into the argument as readily as he does against his body.

This. This is what he’s in the mood for right now. No matter what his libido might say otherwise.


	5. kiss and ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Except drive throughs only exist in horror movies as a place for teens to get murdered in now. Well, they definitely get murdered in kiss and ride areas too, but the government hasn’t gotten around to shutting all of them down in real life because they’ve kinda got bigger fish to fry. Also, people do still need a place to fuck if neither of their places are available.” And that’s his cue to shoot Simmons a filthy grin.

They compromise by watching way too much Star Wars _and_ way too much Star Trek. And then Grif has to leave because it’s about the time his shift would normally be over and he has to make Kai dinner. He stops to give Simmons a hasty goodbye kiss, which turns into a not-so-brief goodbye makeout pressed up against the wall by the door, before he eventually manages to make himself leave.

That night, before he goes to bed he compulsively checks his bank account balance as usual. It isn’t his payday, but something inside of him demands that he stare at the numbers blankly for ten straight minutes as he simultaneously reassures himself that there hasn’t been a mysterious drain in his finances and lowkey panics about how little there is.

There are 1000 dollars more than there should be.

He stares at it, logs out, and logs back in. It’s still there.

He can’t even remember the last time 1000 dollars were in his bank account and he wasn’t immediately throwing it at bills or something. That’s because the last time was never. It’s never happened.

There is only one obvious explanation for this.

Grif calls him because he isn’t sure whether or not Simmons is the kind of old person that does texting or not.

“Grif? Do you need me to come pick you--”

“I’ve got enough money to waste on a taxi now actually, thanks. An armada of taxis, in fact. Happen to know anything about that?”

“... I paid you?”

 _For what,_ he doesn’t ask, because, well. He licks his lips. Kinda obvious when he stops to think about it.

“I set it up so that it’ll automatically transfer over a thousand dollars from my bank account to yours a day. Will that be enough?” The worst thing is, the questions clearly isn’t sarcastic. A loaf of bread could cost 150 dollars for all he knows, probably.

“Automatically,” he repeats flatly. _“Every day.”_

“Well, I did say that you’d get paid even if you didn’t do anything for a day-- and you definitely did, uh, _things_ today, so--”

“Okay thanks for clearing that up for me, night babe,” he says in a rush, tacking on babe at the last moment to make sure Simmons doesn’t think he’s mad at him again for some reason. He then proceeds to stare up at the ceiling for the next hour alternating between thinking about _1000 dollars a day no matter what_ and agonizing over how he called a 50+ year old man _babe._

The next day, he goes to work. He’s getting roughly 30 000 dollars a month, which he’s having trouble even properly comprehending, but the idea of dropping a perfectly fine job with a perfectly fine pay makes him want to scream insults at himself. You _idiot._ You can’t just waste a good thing like that, just because some random sugar daddy asshole waves his credit card at you _once._ Who do you think you are? What do you think is going to happen? That he and his bank account will stay with you forever and everything’s going to be perfectly fine always?

Grif is going to have to be able to continue taking care of Kai and himself once they’re alone again, which means waking up early (which he hates) to go into work (which he _hates)_ even though he’s getting _30 000 dollars a month_ separate from waiting tables.

God. What is he even going to do with all of that money? (Get the water heater fixed, get that broken window he’d just taped some newspaper pages over replaced, get someone to come over and look at the pipes and the wiring, get soap that doesn’t make his hands itch, get food that isn’t a knockoff brand, get Kai new clothes, get _himself_ new clothes, pay the bills on time for once in his life, take the car to the mechanic instead of trying to figure out that weird sound himself--)

Anyways. Grif goes to work.

He fills up two customers mimosa glasses for hours as they talk animatedly with each other, and when they leave they’ve tipped him a dollar and fifty cents and all he can think about is _1000 dollars a day._

He finishes up his shift for the day, hours put in and noted and to be paid for, and all he can think about is _I still made more doing nothing for Simmons than I did here today working my ass off._

He thinks about naps and slacking off and relaxing. God, he’s pretty sure he _used_ to be so good at that. At some point, right?

Fuck. He’s made himself go over all of the reasons he shouldn’t just throw caution to the wind and entirely rely on Simmons no matter how likeable he and his face and his dick and his bank account and his surprisingly vast knowledge of Star Trek trivia is _all day._ He seriously needs to make himself go over it again?

… He shouldn’t just _entirely_ rely on Simmons. But. Partly? Just a safe amount. Just enough to get Grif some goddamned relief and time and space and he’s already knocking on Doc’s office door.

“Grif?” he asks, opening the door. “Are you feeling better? I could recommend--”

“Yeah just fine great thanks,” Grif cuts him off. “How would you feel about me asking to work just part time? Like, especially fire-y or…?”

“Of course not! I mean, of _course_ you can start working part time if you want to, Grif.”

Grif wants to. Grif doesn’t want to work at all, in fact. He wants to live in some kind of dumb fucking fairy tale world where he can just do whatever the hell he wants every damn day and still be able to sleep and eat as much as he wants whenever he wants, to be comfortable, to not have to suppress his cringes when he’s reading the bill letters.

(And now that possibility is being offered to him and he’s so afraid of believing it he can barely bring himself to accept it even partly because life is fucked up and unfair like that.)

“Maybe just to try it out?” Grif says, which is meant to be a compromise but instead just feels like a mistake from every possible direction.

Doc happily agrees to put him on probationary part time work instead of full time. Grif makes him promise to put him back on full time if he asks.

And he goes home.

Or, well, he tries to go home. He’s sabotaged by the fact Simmons is in the restaurant parking lot, trying and failing to look casual as he leans against his car. If he’d managed to fool anyone at all, it’s instantly shattered by the way he quickly stands straight the instant he spots Grif, who had been on his way to his own car. Grif raises his eyebrows at him, absolutely baffled at his presence.

“You here on business?” he asks. It is, after all, his restaurant.

Simmons frowns at him, confused, and then realization dawns as his eyes flick over to the building, back to Grif. “Oh, no. That’s way lower on the command chain. I was just wondering if you wanted to,” he rubs the back of his neck, looks off to the side, blushing a little, “ride home with me..?”

Grif stares at him.

“To your place!” he hurries to correct. “Mine’s got movers in it, still.” Jesus, he’s already got a place swarming with movers.  

Grif blinks at him slowly. Considers. Comes to a firm decision.

“We’re not having sex in my place,” Grif tells him. “My little sister does _not_ fucking knock.”

Simmons immediately goes a bright pink in the face. “That’s not! That’s not what I was--”

They’ve _already had sex._ Twice! And actually officially out loud agreed to get into a sugar relationship with each other, or whatever’s it’s called. The point is, it’s ridiculous that saying this kind of stuff still flusters him so much. It’s admittedly kind of endearing, but still. Ridiculous.

“Dude, it’s fine,” Grif cuts him off. “You pay me to fuck you--”

“No.”

Grif accidentally bites his tongue at the interruption, the negation. What?

“What?” he asks.

“I don’t pay you to-- to fuck me.” Simmons meets his eyes with what seems like a pretty large amount of effort, but he still does it. “I’m paying you to date me.”

“Oh,” Grif says, like he understands the difference.

What is the difference, actually?

“So,” Simmons says. “Can I drive you home?”

“I’m not gonna abandon my car here.”

“I’ll have my secretary pick it up.”

Grif is pretty sure that isn’t what a secretary’s job is supposed to be. Oh, but like he can say no to that beautiful car. “Alright.”

“Is it possible to permanently buy a car from a rental car company?” Grif asks as he gets into the Ferrari. “Because, I’m not telling to you to do that, but I’m not _not_ telling you to do that.”

Simmons looks thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll have to look into it,” he says, far too seriously to be return banter to Grif’s shitty joke. Oh god no.

 _“Dude,”_ Grif says, incredulous.

“What?” Simmons sends him a look filled with genuine confusion as he keys the ignition.

“I can’t fucking believe you.” Grif shakes his head and drops the conversation because honestly, what the fuck. Simmons gives him a last bemused look before returning his focus to driving.

Grif leans back into his seat and lets his eyes glaze over. He likes driving a lot, but having to do it right after work definitely doesn’t feel as fun as he normally finds it. It’s kind of relaxing to just be able to kick back. Kinda nice. Kinda…

Grif notices that he isn’t looking out of his window any longer. He’s looking at Simmons. The sunlight is hitting his hair and making it look especially red at the moment. He looks particularly good in profile, Grif decides. His face is set in a neutral look of diligent focus on the road ahead, and it looks like the kind of expression artists paint.

He’d come just to pick Grif up. Maybe that’s what the difference between being paid to fuck and being paid to date is. It makes him feel… weird. But in a good way?

He really didn’t _just_ want to have sex with Grif. Really, really.

Strangely enough, this just makes him want to fuck Simmons more.

He bites his lip as he considers his options. He’s already said no to his own place and for good reason, Simmons’ was crowding with movers, and… could Simmons possibly be up for roadhead? Actually, it doesn’t matter if he is, which he definitely isn’t when Grif commits more than one second to considering it, because Grif’s almost been fucking murdered in a brutal car accident more than once because of assholes pulling that shit.

And then his eyes catch on a sign and he taps on Simmons’ shoulder before he can think this over and talk himself out of it.

“What?” Simmons asks, quickly glancing over at him.

Grif gives him a shiteating grin and gestures to the sign they’re approaching with an arrow pointing towards a short rarely used track off the road. In blocky, fading letters it reads KISS AND RIDE AREA HERE.

And there’s that nice blush again.

“Um,” Simmons squeaks.

“Come on,” Grif cajoles. “I’m in the mood. What about you?”

As answer, Simmons turns off at the sign, following the arrow.

“I haven’t been to one of these… ever,” he nervously admits as he slowly drives over the bumpy road.

“Well, don’t worry about it, neither have I. I think these were more often used in the eighties or whatever.”

“Like drive ins.”

“Except drive ins only exist in horror movies as a place for teens to get murdered in now. Well, they definitely get murdered in kiss and ride areas too, but the government hasn’t gotten around to shutting all of them down in real life because they’ve kinda got bigger fish to fry. Also, people _do_ still need a place to fuck if neither of their places are available.” And that’s his cue to shoot Simmons a filthy grin.

The blush deepens. “We’re not going to-- this place is for _kissing,_ Grif!”

“Oh please, people have _definitely_ fucked here, Simmons. And we’re about to join their hallowed numbers.”

“I-- in _public?”_

The car comes to a stop in a clearing surrounded by foliage, the highway only distantly audible but not visible at all.

“Eh, I think this is private enough.”

“I don’t have any, uh, supplies with me,” Simmons says, letting Grif know that convincing him to do this was going perfectly smoothly.

“Just some hand or mouth stuff then.” Grif shrugs. “Like yesterday’s blowjob.”

Simmons’ expression changes at that, going from just flustered to flustered and _intrigued._ Well, that answers that for him, doesn’t it? Looks like Grif knows what they’ll be doing now. He isn’t opposed at _all._ Having Simmons jerk him off as he murmured praise in his ear, his jaw still aching, uh, really did it for him an _embarrassing_ amount.

Simmons clicks off his seatbelt, and leans over and down to kiss him. Grif closes his eyes and leans into it, just lets himself soak in the moment and how good--

Simmons is unhurriedly fumbling with Grif’s pants button with one hand. His eyes open and he leans away enough to make a confused noise. Didn’t Simmons want him to…? Were they switching the order in which they came this time? Did Simmons want to stroke him while he was being blowed? That sounds like an awkward position.

“Let me-- this time,” Simmons licks his lips nervously, and it pulls Grif’s gaze and attention back to his mouth. “I want to…”

Oh. _Oh._ Simmons wants to--?

Grif imagines those lips wrapped around his cock and he’s immediately a hundred percent in agreement with that idea, even if a millionaire paying for the privilege of sucking his dick is _ridiculous._ Simmons is just a weirdo, he decides. A beautiful, deceptively perverted weirdo that is about to give him a blowjob.

“Hell yes,” Grif gives his permission. He is the picture of conservity and restraint.

And Simmons draws him into another kiss, more heated, more passionate, deeper. In other words, with tongue. When they pull apart, Simmons has unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, and Grif hadn’t even noticed. It feels like the heating is on full blast inside the car even though Grif watched him turn the ignition off.

“Uh,” Simmons says, looking suddenly hesitant and uncertain. “Feel free to tell me how I’m doing? Because…”

Right, right, this old guy’s only recently come out of the closet.

“Sure,” he says. “I mean, it should be pretty good no matter what so long as you remember to watch your fucking teeth.”

“Of course!” There really have to be an age limit on voice cracks.

Grif pulls him into another kiss, brief and hopefully distracting. “You’ll do fine,” he says, willing Simmons’ nerves to settle with the calm, confident tone of his voice. “Dick sucking isn’t exactly rocket science.”

“I’m good at rocket science,” Simmons mutters to himself. “As a hobby.”

“Well then let’s make blowjobs your new favorite hobby.”

Simmons makes some embarrassed noises at that, Grif grins at him, and then guides him into leaning over his lap with a hand on the back of his neck. His lips brush the tip of his dick, his breath washing over it, and Grif swears to god his dick twitches with the anticipation. Simmons takes a hold of it and tentatively licks it, like a popsicle.

This honestly might be pretty hilarious if it weren’t for the haze of lust wrapping around Grif’s brain and common sense, so instead he just gives a pleased humm and threads his hand through that red and grey hair, and he gives Simmons a gentle push downward. He’s all for letting him go at his own pace, Grif is absolutely fine with drawing this out, but it seems like he might need a little urging.

Simmons goes along with the push, and his mouth is, predictably but still wonderfully, hot and wet. He slides down, and only starts resisting Grif’s hand a little bit away from the base of him, which, fair. First time and all. He stays where he is for a moment, and then swallows either out of reflex or because it’s something Grif’s done for him before. Grif automatically tightens his grip on Simmons’ hair without thinking, pulling a little at his scalp. Simmons gives a surprised moan, and oh, fuck yeah, that’s good. Grif swears softly, and then smooths his hand over Simmons’ hair.

“You like that?” he asks. “A little pulling?”

Simmons doesn’t pull off to answer, but just sinks an extra inch deeper on his dick and moans again, a little lower. He’s gonna take that as a yes, and settles his fingers back into Simmons’ hair again.

“Well, that’s nice,” he says, his mouth feeling too dry. “I can give you a real hands on lesson on bobbing, then.”

And then Grif pulls him up slowly by the roots of his hair, and Simmons moans, loud yet muffled, unrestrained, and a hand he has on Grif’s leg tightens, fingers curling in the fabric of his pants. Grif pulls him almost all the way off so he can have a moment to pant, to protest if he wants (and moan a little more clearly for Grif) and then starts shoving him back down, not too fast but definitely not as gently as he had earlier. More a _command_ than a suggestion.

Simmons is letting him push and pull him on his dick, practically ordering him around. Isn’t this a little backwards? Either way, Grif’s rock hard.

“Good,” he says breathlessly, captivated by what he’s seeing. Can’t tear his eyes away for the life of him. “You’re doing good.”

Simmons had wanted him to tell him how he was doing, right?

Simmons clearly likes this. Simmons clearly becomes more enthusiastic. He moves more easily along with Grif’s hand now, more readily, faster, _deeper._

“Think you can take it up to your throat?” Grif asks, voice a little gravely, his blood singing.

Simmons can do nothing but moan, but he thinks it sounds more wanting than anything else. Grif considers it for a moment, mentally shrugs, and then thrusts a little up into Simmons’ mouth the next time he brings him down. He can feel just his tip entering the tight hot clutch of Simmons throat for a moment and he has to throw his head back against the headrest with a groan at the sensation. He quickly looks down for Simmons reaction. No gagging. Still looking as taken with the whole ‘blowing someone’ thing as before, completely lost in the task.

 _“Very_ good,” he says, and can’t resist running his hand through his hair once like it’s a prize, a treat.

Simmons moans again, and Grif leans back against the seat to watch him work with half lidded eyes, feeling the sensation inside of him building as he guides him, pulls him. Yeah, this is pretty fucking good.

Simmons’ eyes are closed in something that looks close to rapture, his hair is in absolute disarray, and he’s moaning and swallowing near constantly now. His lips shine, red and wet and a little swollen. Grif really, really wants to kiss him, but at the same time he _can’t_ stop now, he’s so close--

“Think you can,” he pants, “take it all the way?”

Simmons goes down hard on his dick as answer, Grif’s hand trailing behind, no doubt pulling hard on his scalp, which Simmons seems to not mind at all as he sinks down to the base of him. Grif thrusts up into him instinctively, Simmons deepthroating right away, on his first time, Jesus, how--

Grif comes with a shout.

He loosened his hold somewhere in there, because when he blinks the spots out of his eyes and his blood stops rushing quite so loudly in his ears, Simmons is sitting up while trying to restrain his coughing. Ah, he should’ve pulled out. Grif kind of feels like an ass.

“Hey,” Grif says, and Simmons blinks a little teary eyed at him, face flushed. There’s a little come dripping from his lips… “Come here.”

Grif kisses it off before Simmons notices.


	6. say that you like like me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m Carolina, and you’re Grif. We both seem to have my ex husband in common.”
> 
> “Uhhhhhhhhh,” says Grif.

Every bill is paid for, every pressing need taken care of, he sleeps until he isn’t tired, eats until he isn’t hungry, working is weirdly not stressful, the sex is awesome, Simmons is fun to hang out with, and he’s seen more of Kai in the last week than he has the last month. It is absolutely absurd how quickly his life turned around after getting together with Simmons. Everything is fantastic, his life has never been better. So of course he can’t stop asking himself where the catch is, when the other shoe is going to drop. He’s braced like someone’s going to randomly ambush him at any moment. 

“Hello,” a beautiful older woman with what he’s pretty sure is dyed red hair greets him, eyes bright green, wearing a teal evening dress and pearl jewelry that’s completely incongruous on Grif’s doorstep. There’s a younger man with brown hair, a nice suit, muscles, and a fucked up left eye standing behind her on her right. So basically, the most bodyguard looking motherfucker on the face of the planet. “I’m Carolina, and you’re Grif. We both seem to have my ex husband in common.” 

And there’s the ambush. 

“Uhhhhhhhhh,” says Grif. 

“Aren’t you going to invite me inside?” she asks, and then she’s diving underneath his arm and into his apartment before he can so much as open his mouth (he’s a little slack jawed, actually). 

Grif spins around to look at her not even trying to hide her inspection of his apartment, which gives the bodyguard the opportunity to casually walk through his front door as well. _ The fuck.  _

“How did you know that?” he asks. Wasn’t he and Simmons dating supposed to be a secret? Sure, they’d never talked about it, but Grif had been pretty sure it had been implied by, oh,  _ common sense. _ Oh fuck, did the tabloids or some shit know? Had going to movies together yesterday been too much? Was there a Buzzfeed article--

“He told me in a letter,” she says, dubiously picking her way past the dirty laundry’s he’d tossed at the floor to be taken care of another day. 

“A letter,” he repeats flatly. 

“A letter,” she confirms, nodding, grimacing after she steps her heel into something that makes a soft squishing sound. “We write.” 

“You  _ write.”  _ Of course. Grif should never have just assumed that Simmons had common sense, and here’s the evidence in front of him right now, because who the  _ hell _ would think it was okay and normal to write to their ex wife about their sugar baby? Richard fucking Simmons, apparently. 

“Our divorce wasn’t particularly bitter. Our fathers practically forced us into marrying each other for business purposes, not that they had to try too hard since we were too used to following their orders. We marry, things are awkward, some time passes, we become friends, some time passes, our fathers die, some more time passes, and then we decide to divorce but keep the friends thing.”

She mercifully gives him a moment to absorb that. 

“... Do you have kids?” is what finally slips out of his mouth for some damned reason. And suddenly, he’s desperately praying that Simmons doesn’t have some beautiful red haired children  _ Grif’s age _ running around. Oh god, please. 

“No,” she says. “I’m not particularly maternal.”

“What are you  _ doing _ here?” he asks, which really should have been his first question. Was she going to make Bodyguard break his legs for daring to sleep with her ex?

“Oh, you know,” she shrugs, attempting and failing at casual as her eyes linger on a stain on the wall that will  _ not _ be washed away. “Just decided to come and… see you. Since York wanted to come and visit Hawaii anyways. ”

“She wants to vet the guy her best friend bought a restaurant chain for,” presumably-York translates with a grin. “Pretty big investment.” 

“Simmons can be… impulsive, sometimes,” Carolina says after throwing York a censorius glare. 

“Oh my fucking god. Is this a shovel talk?” For a  _ fifty year _ _old_ absurdly rich man? 

Carolina looks offended. “Okay, first of all, I use a collapsible baton, not a shovel, and this is not meant to be taken as threatening.”

“But it’s an acceptable side effect?” York asks, and huffs a laugh as Carolina smacks him on his arm in answer. 

“Think of it more as an… interview? Or a ‘getting to know the parent’s’ situation, except I’m his ex wife instead of his parent, and Simmons doesn’t know I’m here and doing this, and I didn’t give you any warning in case you tried to run, and if I find out that you’re using or exploiting Simmons or planning on breaking his heart I’ll--”

“Sic bodyguard on me?” Grif asks with a tilt of his head towards York. Really, being used or exploited? Weren’t their positions in the relationship dynamic kind of reversed here? Sure, Simmons promised he never had to do anything he didn’t want to, he’d leave him alone if he wanted him to, and Grif trusts that this is true. But  _ still. _ Simmons is definitely in the ‘potential exploiter’ position here. 

Carolina and York both blink in baffled unison. 

“No, I’ll sic  _ myself _ on you,” she corrects, frowning as York starts laughing. She crosses her arms so the muscles in them flex, and woah, okay, weirdly ripped old lady. 

“He thinks I’m your  _ bodyguard,”  _ York says, wiping away a tear from the corner of his eye. “I don’t know if I should be flattered or offended. What, am I not pretty enough?” 

What? 

Grif’ eyes bounce back and forth between them. Dignified clearly rich woman on the older side of middle aged. Young fit man. Red haired silver fox. Guy in his twenties wearing an obviously tailored suit-- 

“Oh my GOD,” Grif says as the pieces snap together for him. 

“Simmons may or may not have gotten the get a sugar baby idea from me,” Carolina says. 

“OH MY GOD.” 

“Hey, do you think this makes us sugar in laws?” York asks. 

“Get out of my apartment.” Simmons has the  _ weirdest fucking life.  _ And now Grif has the weirdest life too by association, wee. 

“Not until we’ve had our interview,” Carolina says, sitting down on his couch and pointedly making herself nice and cozy. 

“Aren’t you being a little fucking nosy here? Is this maybe, um,  _ none of your business?  _ Or did you not sign the divorce papers?” 

“Defensiveness indicates that you have something to hide,” she says cooly. 

“This isn’t defensiveness, it’s outright hostility.” 

“Oof, buddy.” York leans against the doorway to the living room. “You should see Carolina’s version of outright hostility.” 

“Okay so what am I going to have to say here to get you outta my place as soon as possible?” 

“Are you planning on going public with your relationship?” Carolina asks. 

_ “Hell  _ no.” 

“Why not?” Carolina raises an eyebrow, the rest of her face remaining impassive yet focused and intent. 

“Because Simmons is rich enough that it’d probably end up on some kind of news site and he’d lose money and I might have to deal with the freaking press like I’m Britney Spears with a new haircut?”

“Would you go public with it without asking--”

“I’d go public as a sugar baby under no circumstances, actually.” He turns to York. “No offense.” 

“We can’t all be out and proud,” he replies, now eating a banana that he clearly stole from Grif’s kitchen while he had his back turned. 

“Do you like Simmons?” 

Grif blinks, distracted from glaring at York. “What?” 

“I said,” Carolina says. “Do you  _ like _ Simmons?” 

“Um,” he says. “I mean. Yeah.” 

“You seemed hesitant when you answered.” 

“Well excuse me Carolina, I just didn’t realize that I was back in middle school.”

“Aw, I don’t think it’s middle school-ish to admit you like someone!” York protests. He turns his gaze to Carolina. “I like you, babe.” 

There is a very slight tinge of pink on Carolina’s cheeks, but her stony expression doesn’t change. “I like you too, dear.” 

Jesus. 

“Next question,” Grif says to distract them from being schmoopy right in  _ front _ of him, in his  _ home.  _

“Right. Do you…” She awkwardly clears her throat and leans in a little closer. “Do you…?” 

“Do you  _ like like _ Simmons?” York finishes for her. 

Grif… Grif doesn’t even know how to… 

“I like like you also, babe,” York stage whispers. 

“Okay, since we’ve crossed the threshold from ‘actual questions’ to ‘clearly fucking with Grif’ I think it’s about time you two got out of here already--”

“No, it’s a serious question!” Carolina sits up straight. “Do you have…  _ romantic  _ feelings, for my ex husband? Truly romantic? Do you enjoy being around him? Do you think you could have something less financially motivated with him?” 

Grif stares at her. “That’s not… what the deal was?”

“No, I _ know  _ but--” 

“Simmons likes like you,” York now stage whispers to him, making Grif instantly freeze up. 

“York!” Carolina scolds him. 

“I read it in one of his letters to Carolina,” York goes on. 

“Those aren’t for you to read!” 

“She just leaves them lying around the mansion so of course I read them.” 

“You--”

“Who even writes letters any longer, right?” 

“Lots of people! And that’s besides the point. York, stay out of it.” Carolina turns her attention back to Grif, who is still frozen by the way, in pretty much every way. Simmons…? “Simmons did not outright state that he,” cue quotation marks helpfully provided by her fingers, “‘like likes’ you.” 

“Yeah, he just constantly gushes about you and inevitably digresses into talking about you no matter the topic of conversation ever since he came here. So, like, I’ve got a gut feeling.” 

Grif forces himself to relax. A gut feeling. That’s different from Simmons outright stating that he, uh,  _ like likes _ Grif. It just means that he… talks and ‘gushes’ about him a lot, which is. Fine. 

Grif suddenly and desperately wishes he could read those letters. 

“How long were you and Simmons married?” he asks, because if he’s ever needed a distraction it’s now. 

Carolina gives him a look like she absolutely noticed that he didn’t answer her question. (Grif doesn’t… does he?) “A little over three decades.”

Okay, holy shit, that was one hell of a relationship. 

“We divorced only a couple of years ago,” she goes on. “Simmons has been… lonely. Look, I’ll leave, just… be gentle with him no matter what, okay?” 

Did Carolina just tell him to let Simmons down gently. Grif opens his mouth to protest this in some way because Simmons is a grown damn man, but then he closes it because okay, yeah, he does somehow get the sense that he’d be able to make Simmons cry if he was mean enough, which does not feel good. 

She stands up, and they leave. 

“Aren’t you going to say that you like like me too?” Grif hears York say before the door closes behind them. 


	7. Inside of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ll, I’ll let you top,” he says, his hand coming up the back of Grif’s head to push him closer against his throat despite his bargaining. “If we go to the bed now.”

Should Grif introduce Simmons to Kai, since he’s written to his ex wife about him? 

Let’s rephrase that: should Grif introduce his older sugar daddy to his impressionable, impulsive, reckless little sister? 

Obviously not, right? Definitely not when he thinks about it like that. Kai spray painted a dick on a cop’s car once, while the cop was  _ still in the car, _ somehow. The idea of her thinking it’s okay to date guys more than twice her age for money just because Grif does it is _ horrifying,  _ and that’s definitely where her mind would immediately go after making about three dozen dirty jokes at his expense _. _ There are so, so many ways that could end horribly. 

So, it’s decided then. Kai and Simmons will remain seperate parts of his life, never to intersect in any way. 

If this means that he’ll always have to keep Simmons at an arm's length to achieve that, well. That’s probably smartest anyways.

* * *

 

“The movers are done with my house,” Simmons says over the phone. “Do you want to…?” 

“Come over?” Grif finishes for him. “Sure. Just make sure there’s food in your fridge.” 

“Oh, damn it, I knew forgot something! Hang on, I’ll have it taken care of before you get here.”

“Uh huh,” he says, already digging his beaten up sneakers out from underneath his bed. How had they even gotten there? 

He hangs up, and Grif leans into the living room where Kai’s lounging on the couch watching some show that’s mid uncomfortable sex scene. Or maybe she’s just watching bad porn in the living room, who knows. “I’m going out, maybe for the whole night.”

Her hand is already reaching for the her phone to invite people over. Grif doesn’t even bother trying to stop her, there really is no point in wasting the effort on trying to persuade her. “Booty call rang?” 

Grif freezes on his way out of the living room. Turns around, belatedly remembering to look like she didn’t just accuse him of murder. “Pfft,” he says, “what?” 

“Dude,” Kai says. 

Grif is admittedly usually a better liar than this. “I don’t have a booty call,” he tries anyways, for some reason. He just  _ does not _ like the idea of Kai knowing that there’s a guy around who can snap his fingers and Grif will come along and fuck him. 

Okay, calm down, it’s not like that. More or less. 

“Uh huh, yeah, sure,” she says, not even looking at him any longer, eyes on her phone and fingers tapping away. 

“No, really.” Why can’t he just shut up and leave? 

“There’s no need to get all weird about it, bro.” She’s so right. 

_ Never to intersect in any way, _ he thinks. 

But, well. Is this intersecting? She just thinks that he’s a booty call. Not important. It’s fine. It’s  _ fine.  _ Drop it, Grif. 

“Just don’t let your friends break anything again,” he says, and leaves, and is not weird about anything. 

He goes to the address Simmons texts him. It is, as predicted, in the fancier part of town, and is way too large for just one guy. He can already tell it has a great view and oh fuck is that the Ferrari in the driveway. 

Grif tries to avoid jumping to conclusions in general. It could just still be rented. But. Simmons  _ would.  _

He gets out of his car, kicking the door shut behind him and only just remembering to lock up before he walks up to the house and throws the door open. Kinda pretty  _ very _ risky and rude, but he’s fairly sure that this is where Simmons lives, and honestly if he’s not going to be fine with Grif being impolite sometimes then this (relationship) arrangement isn’t gonna last. 

“Simmons!” he calls out. “I’m here and also did you fucking actually buy that car? And did you get food!” 

“Um!” Simmons replies from somewhere deeper inside the house. Grif starts following the source of his voice. “Yes and yes! I said I would, and also I just ordered some takeout, sorry?” 

“What kind of takeout?” he asks, because while he absolutely always does have more room for pizza, he would also really, really like to eat something else tonight. 

“Thai-- oh shit, wait, wait, please don’t come--!”

But it’s too late and Grif comes inside the room just in time to see Simmons desperately try and stop himself from being squashed underneath a toppling life sized replica of Chewbacca while having his hands full with a bunch of different blasters. 

They both freeze. Grif stares at him. Simmons stares at Grif staring at him. Grif stares at their surroundings, which is wall to wall and ceiling to floor pure distilled nerdom. Stormtroopers, lightsabers, hang on, is that Boba Fett? 

Chewbacca pushes Simmons’ burdened shoulders another inch further down, and somewhere inside of it, for god only knows what reason, a voice box goes off and it does the growl-howl noise thing. Simmons goes bright red and Grif bites the inside of his cheeks. 

“... Need a hand?” he offers, voice trembling with restrained laughter. Simmons flushes redder. 

“Okay, so, no, you don’t,  _ this isn’t what it looks like!”  _

“It kinda looks like you landed yourself in a pretty precarious position while moving your shrine to geekery in.” Although considering the sheer size of this collection perhaps ‘temple’ would be more accurate. “Actually, hang on, didn’t you have movers for that? You know, people whose job it is to do this without being squashed to death by hairy life sized statues?” 

“No hurry or anything,” Simmons grits out, struggling against the statue’s weight and gravity. Grif knows a deflection when he sees one. 

“Oh my god you didn’t want to let them touch your nerd stuff, didn’t you.” This is wonderful. This is a wonderful day. 

“No!” Simmons denies with a wild look in his eyes. He might as well have just shouted YES THAT’S EXACTLY IT GRIF YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD in his face instead. “That would be possessive and controlling and neurotic and weird and I am  _ none of those things.”  _

“Well,” Grif says. “You definitely seem to think you’re all of those things.” And, granted, to some degree he is. Grif would’ve shucked him off by now if he was  _ too _ possessive and controlling, though. He seems to know how to treat people and things differently. (Neurotic and weird have never been in question, though.) 

“I do not! That’s why I just specifically said I wasn’t those things!” 

“Despite no one in this room besides yourself using those words.” 

“Exactly!” 

Grif gives Simmons a long, flat look that he sweats underneath. Then he has to raise a hand to his face to try and hide his smile, in vain. It’s too wide for it. It’s just-- this is so dumb, and weirdly cute. He realizes that Simmons is what the awkward nerd that gets shoved into lockers in the movies grows up into, if they also become a gazillionaire. Of course he’s got a hall of glory for his Star Wars memorabilia, probably all authentic and first edition or some shit, flawlessly taken care of. 

“Don’t laugh at me,” Simmons orders, clearly trying to hold off a whining note to his voice and only partially succeeding. 

“I’m not laughing at you,” he says, biting his lip to try and hold back his laughter. A thought occurs. “Were you not going to let me see this room?” 

“Uh,” Simmons says. 

“Oh my god, Simmons. What were you going to do? Slap a lock on it and tell me to never go inside?” 

“Yyyyes?” 

The laughter wins, and Grif has to lean against Darth Vader to just cackle for a moment. “Simmons! That’s awful! I would’ve thought you had a murder room or something!” 

“A  _ what.”  _

“You know, the place where psychopaths hang the skins of their victims and their flaying instruments and chains and stuff.”

“That is not a thing.” 

“Is so!”

“Is _ not.”  _

“TV wouldn’t lie to me, Simmons!” 

Chewbacca makes another warbling howl, and Grif has to stuff half of his fist into his mouth before he composes himself. 

“Just help me already, my back’s going to break! Or worse, the  _ collectables.”  _

“Really? That’s worse?” Grif moves to finally help him. 

“I can buy myself a new spine, not a second magical copy of the blaster that Harrison Ford actually held on the movie sets. Careful!” 

Eventually, all of the shit is put away, and Simmons is free to embarrassedly drag him away from his nerd cave despite the fact that Grif kinda actually wants to linger, and not entirely just so he can make fun of Simmons either. 

“So I’m guessing you’re settling in alright otherwise?” he asks, as unable to knock the grin off his face as Simmons is at knocking off the slight blush that’s still clinging onto his. 

“Just fine,” he says shortly. “Why isn’t the Thai here yet? How was your day?” 

Clearly looking for a distraction to smoothly move on from the moment that’s probably going to haunt him for the rest of his days. Grif definitely won’t be helping him forget it, but he supposes he can let him off the hook just for now. 

He idly recounts his very boring day to him as they gravitate towards the couch, and he half checks out as his mouth runs, looking around himself. Huge and expensive everything, of course, but the fact that it all looks tasteful and good makes him suspect that Simmons actually went and hired an interior designer. He might wear pricey suits, but there’s just something about him that screams not-exactly-fashion-savvy-to-put-it-lightly. 

It seems like Simmons’ is restraining all of his nerdiness to just the one room, because there’s nothing but classy paintings and vases as decoration here. Bleh. 

As he casually inspects his surroundings, his eyes snag on a detail. Something personal looking that doesn’t look like it could have been straight up transported from an Ikea catalogue or something. A picture, leaning on top of a little table by the couch. Carolina and Simmons look out at him from the picture, younger by perhaps about a decade, drinking margaritas and laughing uproariously about something. Carolina looks barely recognizable from the woman who surprise interrogated him in his apartment with that expression on her face. He can’t recall having made Simmons laugh so hard yet. 

Well. It hasn’t been that long since they met each other. There’s plenty of time for him to… 

Grif blinks as he realizes he just thought of himself and Simmons in the long term for the first time. Not as something to plan for or consider, but casually, naturally. 

Okay, so Simmons straight up buying a house in Hawaii may be having a _ slight _ effect on him. He’ll get right on suppressing that. 

“Grif?” Simmons asks. “You kind of trailed off in the middle there.” 

“Uh, right,” he says, and then proceeds to not continue where he left off because he has no idea what the fuck he was even saying and now he can’t seem to stop noticing Simmons’ crows feet or the way he’s left his top shirt button unbuttoned and did he do that on purpose to deliberately seduce Grif because the shameful thing is that it’s kinda working for him. 

“... you okay?” 

They’d just been having normal smalltalk only seconds ago and now suddenly Grif’s libido’s emerged from the depths like the Kraken to punch him right in the dick. What is happening to him. He isn’t usually like this, he swears. 

But. It’s fine, right? This is why Simmons called him over here in the first place, probably. To ‘break in’ the new place, or whatever. Grif seriously doubts he’ll be able to have sex in every room in this gigantic house in one afternoon, much less Simmons himself, but he sure does  _ feel _ like he can. He can make a spirited attempt, anyways. 

“Just fine,” he says, eyes dropping to Simmons’ lips. “Fine as hell.” 

Simmons licks his lips, which makes his blood hum in such a nice way, and he’s got a feeling he’s caught Grif’s drift. 

“My, uh, bedroom’s more well stocked than my kitchen,” Simmons says, nicely confirming that feeling. Grif grins. Oh well, the couch will just have to wait until a later day. 

“You sure you don’t wanna do it while a poster of Palpatine watches?” he can’t help ribbing him a little on their way to Simmons’ bedroom, which coincidentally takes them right past the Hall of Nerd on the way. 

Simmons sends him a flushed, horrified look and walks faster past the room, his hand clamped around Grif’s wrist as Grif doesn’t know where everything is yet. “That’s a terrifying visual, Grif. You couldn’t have chosen a less sexy Star Wars villain if you tried.” 

“Jabba the Hutt,” Grif immediately says. 

“STOP IT.” 

“Jar Jar Binks.” 

“He’s the comic relief, not a villain.” 

“Debatable. He’s not funny, and he was the tie breaking vote on giving Palpatine emergency powers, opening the door for him to become Emperor and--” 

“Grif, I’d love to have an hours long argument about Star Wars with you, but do you want to have sex or don’t you? Because making me think about Jabba the Hutt watching us do it  _ really  _ isn’t good for my motivation.” 

“You know that perv’d be into it,” Grif says with a shiteating grin, and Simmons groans, rolls his eyes, and exasperatedly shoves him into his bedroom. 

It’s a nice bedroom, naturally. Not as extravagant as the hotel room, though, which Grif is honestly kind of into. Just a plain but large bed, neatly made and soft looking. A couple of nightstands on either side, a wardrobe, a lamp, a large window, and that’s it. Simmons busies himself with drawing the curtains while Grif looks around, imagining what personal touches will be added on later once the place starts to get lived in. 

Maybe some of Simmons’ nerd stuff will start to spill over. He’s a pretty neat, fussy person, but probably a coffee mug or two will escape even him. Perhaps a book, a gift (from who?), a magazine, more pictures (of who?). Maybe his lonely ass will get a pet and there’ll be cat hair and squeaky rubber mouses everywhere. Maybe some of Grif’s comic books-- 

Grif notices the stray, casually presumptive thought and immediately forces himself off this train of thought. Focus on something else. So, if he can’t think about the room then--

Simmons turns around, and Grif latches onto him, arms around his sides and kisses clumsily aimed at his mouth, as if distracting himself from thinking about how awfully attached he’s getting to Simmons by making out with Simmons makes any sense at all. 

It feels so nice to be close to him, though. 

Simmons makes a sound that goes from surprised to pleased inside of just one muffled moan, and let’s Grif push him up against a wall for only a few moments before he turns his face away from the kiss so he can say, “Grif, there’s a bed _ right there. _ ” 

“Uh huh,” he agrees, actually even plans to do something with Simmons’ observation for a moment, before he’s abruptly and intensely distracted from any burgeoning ideas about moving when he realizes that Simmons has now neatly exposed his throat to him, the side with the skin, the side that’s warm and fun to kiss and suck on. 

He does so, and Simmons is distracted for a while as well. The height difference is kind of nice, actually. He may have to pull Simmons down into every kiss, but he can give his throat some attention for as long as he wants without getting a crick in his neck. 

“Ah--” Simmons says, voice breaking, perhaps a valiant but fruitless attempt at an actual sentence, and Grif has to press harder up against him to hold him up against the wall as his knees buckle. Simmons’ hands are fisted in shirt, and he can’t quite seem to stop rubbing up against the leg Grif’s got between his legs. “Grif, seriously, bed, come on.” 

His voice is breathless, his sentence fractured and distracted, and Grif could stay right here like this for the rest of his life. Everything’s feels so uncomplicated and good when all of his blood’s busy rushing to his dick instead of making his brain run itself ragged in worried circles, and it feels _ especially _ good with Simmons whimpering and keening underneath his hands and his mouth. 

“I’ll, I’ll let you top,” he says, his hand coming up the back of Grif’s head to push him closer against his throat despite his bargaining. “If we go to the bed now.” 

Grif pauses, his lips resting against Simmons’ skin as an image of his hands gripping bruisingly tight around Simmons’ hips comes to his mind, ramming ceaselessly right into him as he moans and  _ screams-- _

“Do you  _ want  _ me to top?” he asks, because it kind of sounds like Simmons thinks he’s giving Grif the better position in exchange for the bed right now. Grif admittedly loves the idea of his dick inside of Simmons, but he loves Simmons’ dick inside of him too. He’s fine with just bottoming, if that’s what Simmons wants. 

Simmons makes some various embarrassed noises and squeaks at that, which makes Grif strongly suspect that yes, he  _ does _ want Grif to top and he’s just being weird and cagey about it for some reason-- 

Ah, right, he was married to a chick for thirty years and then came out in his fifties, making the probably rather regrettable decision of having Grif be his first dude everything. He probably thinks he shouldn’t want to bottom. 

“Because it’d be pretty hot if you do,” he continues, talking right over a very wandering and awkwardly drawn out denial of Grif’s accusation; no wonder the guy never leaves Grif voice mails if this is what happens when he’s left to carry a conversation by himself. 

Simmons cuts himself off at that. Grif waits for him to say something, deliberately not saving him. 

“... I  _ might _ want to try it out. To see if I like it.” He sounds prickly and defensive, just daring Grif to say something about it. Grif ignores the insecurity easily by now, and just nuzzles up underneath Simmons’ jaw, nipping a little at the skin there to the sound of a flustered yelp. 

“Yeah,” he replies, hands settling on Simmons hips and slowly pulling him to the bed as he walks backwards towards it. “Of course, hon. And it goes without saying that _ hell yeah _ I wanna fuck you.” 

Grif isn’t sure if the following squeak is because of him outright admitting that he wants to fuck Simmons, or the accidental _ hon  _ that had just slipped out. Or maybe it was because Grif just tossed him onto the bed, who knows. 

“Get your pants off, I’m gonna find the lube,” he orders and Simmons flushes. 

“It’s in the drawer-- no, not that one, that one!” 

“That doesn’t sound like you’re getting your pants off, Simmons.” 

“I can multitask!” 

Ah, there it was. Brand new and high quality enough that Grif doesn’t quite recognize the brand, he picks it up and turns around to the sight of Simmons indeed still wearing pants. He’s got his belt unbuckled at least, zipper and button undone, but he seems to have become distracted with unbuttoning his shirt. 

“You could just rip that off, you know,” he suggests, just taking his own t shirt off by slipping it off over his head. Simmons should wear something that doesn’t take a bazillion years to unbutton when he knows damn well that they’re going to have sex. 

“I can’t just do that with all of my shirts, Grif.” Simmons spares a moment to shoot him a quick glare without any venom in it and then turns his attention back to his shirt. 

“Um, you absolutely can, or otherwise what’s the point of being filthy rich?” 

“Besides being able to shout  _ I’m twice as rich as you now old man _ at your father’s grave?”

“Um.” Grif blinks, takes off his pants and underwear. “Let’s maybe keep the daddy issues out of the bedroom for now.” 

“There,” Simmons says with satisfaction as he pops the last button out of its hole. Grif crawls onto the bed and throws a leg over his side to stop him before he completely takes his shirt off, because Simmons wearing an unbuttoned shirt is a look that’s weirdly working for him and he wants to fuck him like that. 

“What’d I say about the pants?” he says, and leans down to kiss him before he can answer. 

“Mmmmif you’d just let me--” Simmons is interrupted by yet another kiss, and the groan he makes into it almost sounds a little annoyed, but he doesn’t lift a finger to try and get out of it. 

“Sorry, what was that?” he asks him with a shiteating grin, and Simmons shoots him an absolutely offended glare. 

“Okay, if you’re going to stop me from taking my pants off  _ and _ not kiss me while you’re doing it then you can just get off,” he huffs, shoving at Grif’s chest. Grif lets it happen, flopping down to the mattress on Simmons’ side. 

“Oh, I plan to,” he says. 

“Don’t make innuendos after you’ve already gotten me into bed,” he says, hooking his thumbs underneath his pants and underwear and shoving it down together in one motion. 

“ _ Inside of you,” _ he goes on, leaning in close to whisper it into Simmons’ ear. 

_ That  _ gets him a reaction. Simmons makes a very interesting sound, and both of his hands fly up to hide his reddening face. 

“... you  _ ass,”  _ he says, muffled from behind his palms. 

“More like _ your _ ass.” 

This is enough provocation for Simmons to muster up the courage to glare at Grif from between his fingers. 

He doesn’t even have to say anything for Grif to put a hand on his now bare hip and turn him onto his side facing Grif, for him to press some apologetic kisses onto his hands because his face isn’t available yet. 

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “How about I stop making fun of you and we actually do this?” 

“That would be-- yes, please,” Simmons says, and now that he doesn’t have the annoyance to cloak it with Grif can plainly hear the nerves in his voice. 

“We’ll take it slow since it’s your first time doing it like this,” he casually comforts him, sitting up and reaching for the bottle of lube. Simmons turns back onto his back so his eyes can follow his hand, eyes latching onto the bottle and kind of… staying there. Yeah, definitely nervous. Grif wonders what dumb ass gay sex myths are circling through his head right now. “I’ll just finger you for a while--”

Simmons makes a small noise at that, and Grif pauses, raising an eyebrow at him. Simmons flushes and avoids eye contact. 

Grif grins, unseen. 

“Actually, while we’re doing this, let’s  _ really _ focus on the fingering--” Simmons twitches, reflexively licks his lips, “--part.” 

Yeah. Yes. Hell yes. 

Grif flicks the cap on the lube off, starts pouring it onto his right hand. Kneeling over and to the side of Simmons, who’s still lying down on his back. 

“Spread your legs,” he says, voice already going a little gravely. 

Simmons shivers a little at that, and does it. Grif is hyper sensitive to the sound his thighs make as they slide across the covers, to the feel of the lube dripping onto and over his fingers. 

He really can’t resist leaning down to kiss him, and the way Simmons lets out a startled squeak into the kiss when his hand makes contact with his skin on its way to his hole is really pretty damn good. In no time at all Simmons has his hands in Grif’s hair, is helplessly tugging at it in small twitchy movements as Grif makes sure to only put one finger in first, slowly, slowly. He knows he’s got wide, fat fingers, just like the rest of him. They’re not very long, though, can’t reach very far in. He’s got plans for that, though. 

Soon, his finger’s as far in as it's going to get. He lets Simmons adjust for a moment, and then starts moving as soon as he feels him untense around his hand a touch. 

He kisses him as he crooks his finger into him, on his mouth, his face, his throat as Simmons tosses his head back onto his pillow, back arching and pushing back onto Grif’s hand, one hand moving restlessly up and down Grif’s back as the other slowly clutches tighter and tighter in his hair. 

Simmons doesn’t seem to be able to stop making noises, hitched breaths and gasps and pleased hums being ceaselessly torn out of his throat as Grif pumps his hand and tentatively adds a second finger. Simmons scrabbles at his back at this, breath starting to pant, but he doesn’t tell him to stop or slow down. 

“You good?” he checks in anyways. 

“Ffff--fine! I’m, it’s fine, keep going, _ keep going,”  _ he says, voice strained but tone insistent. 

Grif keeps going. 

After a long while of Simmons squirming and making the  _ best  _ noises, he draws his fingers out, to the responding sound of a protesting groan from Simmons. He wouldn’t be able to stop himself from smirking at him even if he wanted to. 

“Come on,” he says, reaching for the lube bottle again. “You should get a turn too.” 

“Hmm--huh?” It seems like he’s a bit too worked up at the moment for his brain to properly make connections any longer. 

Grif decides to explain himself with action, squirting a handful of lube into his palm and then reaching for Simmons’ hand which had fisted itself into the sheets at some point, loosening now that Grif isn’t slowly driving him crazy any longer. He slides their fingers together, slick and interlocked, and then pulls Simmons hand down, down, down--

“Oh,” Simmons says. 

“I figure this is probably something you should know how to do,” Grif says. “I mean, it’s not rocket science or anything--”

“I’m still pretty good at rocket science.” 

“--I’m sure you could figure it out on your own, or at least with Google’s help, but,” and he smiles, “it’s more fun like this. Right?” 

Simmons’ mouth twitches into a helpless crooked smile as he looks at him, eyes going soft, a strange expression on his face that makes Grif’s mouth go dry. “Sure, Grif.” 

Grif turns his attention to coaxing Simmons into inserting one of his own slick fingers into himself instead of focusing on the way his heart’s beating fast in a way that doesn’t have a whole lot to do with dicks right now, and mostly just how tenderly Simmons just said his name. 

Simmons’ brow furrows and he bites his lips as he pushes his finger in. 

“You can go further in than I was able to,” he tells him. “Which is good, considering that my dick’s longer than my fingers.”

Simmons shoots him a brief distracted look at that, at one very  _ specific _ part of Grif, and then he twitches and flushes a little stronger, looking determinedly away, acting like he’d never looked at all.  _ Adorable.  _ How can an oldish man be so consistently adorable? 

“You should add another finger,” he adds. “It’d usually be too early for it, but mine are thicker than yours anyways, I think you’re ready for it.” 

“I’m, I’m getting to it,” he says, voice strained. Grif decides to start distracting him from whatever he’s clearly overthinking about, and goes for his poor neglected dick. 

Simmons squawks in a way that’s decidedly more hilarious than sexy, but that’s fine. Pretty much nothing could kill Grif’s boner now, with Simmons spread mostly naked on his bed while cautiously fingering himself, covered in hickies. 

His hand is still slick from when he fingered Simmons, so he easily starts smoothly pumping him. 

“Grif!” he says, voice breaking. “I-- don’t make me come before we’ve even--”

“I’ll be careful,” he promises. “Tell me if you feel like you’re too close.” 

Simmons makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat at that, sounding almost agonized, but then he squeezes his eyes shut and tosses an arm over them to boot, not otherwise protesting, fingers driving deeper into himself. He lets out a shuddering breath. 

Grif can’t stop smiling, and he doesn’t bother trying now that Simmons isn’t even looking at all anyways. He thumbs at the head of Simmons’ dick, gently squeezes the body of it and watches Simmons hips twitch up into his hold, the way his entire body responds to the way his fingers are no doubt twitching and spasming inside of him at Grif’s ministrations, a feedback loop of stimulus. He’s so pretty like this. 

“You’re doing such a good job,” he breathes. Simmons moans, long and helplessly shameless. “Yeah, continue like that. Do you think you could fit in another finger now?”

“Yeah, yes, I think, I think so,” Simmons stutters, and then he does add in another finger, whimpering at the addition, toes curling and arm moving away from his face so he can clutch at something again, like a lifeline. So, so pretty. Grif can’t stand it. He _ needs _ to, to something, he needs--

“You think you’re ready now?” he asks, the words that he probably shouldn’t be saying rasping out of his throat. He should be giving Simmons more time, all the time he needs, not pushing, but-- he could be ready by now. And Grif  _ needs _ to do something more. 

“Um, ah,” Simmons says, brow furrowing as he tries to scrape his thoughts together with Grif’s hand on his dick and his own up inside of him. “Yes? I think--”

Grif’s already moving, slicking up his dick, jerking off. It feels so good to touch himself but he’s supposed to wait to come until he’s inside of Simmons, and so he forces himself to remove his hand from himself to instead reach for Simmons’ wrist to gently pull him out of himself. Simmons makes a small noise at that, not of protest but pure reaction, instinct. So reactive. 

Grif hasn’t felt this lucky in a long ass time. 

Soon, Simmons’ hole is available, and Grif lines his dick up as Simmons half distractedly wipes his lube covered hand on the sheets, eyes raptly focused downwards. He probably can’t even see much besides his own boner, but that doesn’t stop him from trying, eyes wide. Still nervous. 

Grif kisses what of Simmons he can reach without breaking his position, which means lifting his hand and kissing the back of it. It truly is incredible the sappy shit he can get up to when he’s got a boner to cloud his judgement for him. 

“Dude, it’ll be fine,” he murmurs against the back of his hand, eyes opening to find Simmons’ eyes now locked on his lips instead, which he feels like is probably an improvement. 

“I’m not worried,” he denies. 

“Okay, sure.” Grif graciously lets him have that. “But just so you know, bottoming is fun as fuck, and I can pull out literally whenever if you don’t like it.” 

“I-- I know.” 

“Cool.” 

And then Grif turns his hand over to kiss the inside of his palm instead as he slowly pushes inside of Simmons, eyes half lidded and open, fixed on his face for any signs of pain. 

God, it’s so hard to focus on anything besides the slick, tight heat and pressure beginning to envelope his dick, though. Simmons feels  _ good.  _

His eyes squeeze shut and he muffles a groan into Simmons’ palm, lightly grazing his teeth at the base of it in a gentle bite as he forces himself to stop, to turn his gaze towards Simmons. Simmons fingers twitch and he clenches around Grif in a way that promptly obliterates thirty percent of his ability to think. 

His face is flushed, eyes dark and already glazing over, hair messily falling over his forehead, breathing quick and a little shallow. 

“Simmons,” Grif rasps, and it was meant to be the start of a question (are you okay do you like it should I stop), but instead he just helplessly repeats himself, frozen by that beautiful expression. “Simmons.” 

“Grif,” he responds.  _ “Grif.” _ His hips twitch a little downwards onto Grif’s dick, and he has to dig his nails into Simmons’ wrist and hip, nails scratching over overheated skin. Everything’s so warm. 

“Yeah?” he somehow manages. 

“Fucking  _ move.”  _

Oh, fuck yes. 

He doesn’t need further encouragement, and just starts pushing further into that slick heat until he bottoms out, letting go of his hand. Simmons clenches down tightly again and starts swearing, hands moving to clench in his hair, the sheets, Grif’s shoulders, restlessly not settling but constantly needing to move, his hips helplessly making minute small movements as Grif tries to hold onto his sanity long enough to let Simmons adjust. 

He’s moaning by the time Simmons relaxes enough for Grif to feel totally okay with drawing back, feeling that delicious drag of skin against skin, and then he makes sure to take a proper grip of Simmons’ hips (he hopes his finger marks will bruise, distinctive and proprietary, like hickies) so he can  _ ram _ back in, pushing Simmons down onto him as he thrusts up into him. 

Simmons cries out loud enough for Grif to wonder if the neighbours can hear him. 

“Good?” he asks breathlessly, pausing--

“Again!” Simmons snaps. 

And that’s the last Grif checks in with him, trusting him to let him know if things start to feel bad. He almost immediately loses count of his thrusts, and then basically all sense of time and anything that isn’t on this wonderful, large bed. He really can’t recall ever wanting to exercise so much, but he’d be perfectly fine with just thrusting in and out of Simmons for every day for the rest of his life. He’d be overjoyed. 

He could have that. He could reach out, and he could have Simmons in his bed every night, to fool around with and argue and kiss and--

“Harder, harder,” Simmons mindlessly repeats. 

Grif complies, leaning over him to grasp the headboard and snap his hips in a sharp and merciless tempo. There’s no motivator quite like a sexy redhead begging for it, apparently. 

Simmons immediately throws his arms around Grif’s neck and rises up to press sloppy, poorly aimed kisses at his lips, and Grif groans into it as he tries to continue thrusting up into him at a different angle. Simmons doesn’t stop kissing him. 

“You’re so pretty,” Grif tells him. “And cute, and _ tight--” _

“Grif!” he cries out, and then he comes, every part of him going tense, clenching down and squeezing on Grif’s dick and Grif’s downright lightheaded with lust and  _ love-- _

He comes right after Simmons, into him. 

The world is soft and light and good, and he pulls out of Simmons to roll next to his side, pressed up close. Simmons, for his part, immediately turns towards him to nestle in close, nosing at his hair and neck, pressing a few light kisses here and there. Grif curls an arm around his shoulders contentedly. Right now, everything’s perfect. 

“Grif,” Simmons murmurs after a while. “I just realized something.” 

“What?” Grif sleepily mumbles, already started on the process of drifting off. 

“We completely forgot to use a condom.” 

“Oops,” he says, instead of pointing out that they forgot to do it for their blowjobs too. Everything just starts to seem so urgent when his mind gets hung up on how sexy Simmons is. 

“... I’m going to go and take a shower  _ now.” _

“What? Nooo,” he whines as Simmons starts to squirm out of his hold. He’d fit so well in the crook of his arm, nestled up against him like he belonged. 

“There is  _ semen  _ in my-- we can cuddle later!” And with that last flustered declaration Simmons rolls out of bed and marches out of the bedroom. 

Grif pouts after him, and it isn’t even for theatrics. His side’s cold now. And everything isn’t perfect any longer, and--

Did he think the word  _ love,  _ just a few moments ago before coming? 

The doorbell rings. 

“Grif, can you get the Thai?” Simmons calls out over the sound of the shower running

Grif is fucked. 


	8. pizza rolls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I thought you said no having sex at your place,” he says, voice not entirely steady.
> 
> “Sister ain’t home,” Grif says, his own voice already audibly heated. He grinds up against Simmons’ ass a little, and Simmons sways forward a bit, has to brace himself better against the oven, his legs sliding a little farther apart for better balance. “Door’s locked.”

“So, I met your ex-wife,” Grif says, and Simmons chokes on his spring roll. 

“What,” he manages between tearful coughing. 

“Yeah, she came to my place with her boytoy and introduced herself and stuff. You haven’t heard from her yet?” 

Simmons shakes his head dumbly. 

“Well, I’m sure she’ll reach out before she leaves. Anyways, it got me thinking: wanna meet my sister?” 

Grif had resolved to never do this _ so recently. _ And here he is, doing it. Why? 

“Um,” he says, wide eyed and still caught off guard. “Yes! I do!” 

“Okay, cool, so, ground rules: she’s not gonna find out that you’re my sugar daddy. Ever. We’re just boyfriends with an unusual age gap.” 

Simmons is nodding emphatically along, already looking nervous but determined, like a student before an important test. 

“And you’re gonna have to wear normal clothes to help sell that.” 

Simmons stops nodding after a moment, and then looks down at himself, confused. “Is this not normal?” 

He’s wearing black slacks, socks, and a white button down shirt. It’s the closest that he can come to casual that Grif can tell, and it isn’t good enough. 

“You just look like a well fucked businessman,” he says. “Which you are.” 

Simmons chokes on his spring roll again. “I’m just going to stop eating until this conversation’s over. I’m sorry, I look like _ what?”  _

“I’m just saying, you’ve gotta wear something a little more casual than that for me able to swing this with Kai.” He pauses to think. “You  _ do _ own something that isn’t a suit, right?” 

“... I could if you want me to?” he says sheepishly, which means no, he does not. 

How is this man real. 

Well, at least money isn’t an issue with him. He can just buy something normal looking and Grif won’t have to feel guilty about it. Wait. 

“Do you _ know  _ what normal looks like?” Grif asks. 

“Of course I do!” 

“Because you can’t just wear something you saw someone else wearing. You’ll end up looking like a teenager in an old man’s body, Freaky Friday style.” 

“Um, no, I wasn’t going to just copy some stranger, I can… I’ll  _ research _ it, yes!”

Grif really, really wants to just let this play out and see whatever disaster Simmons comes up with, which is why he’s a bad person. But, no, he actually needs for this to go well, so he’ll intervene. 

“Just wear some jeans,” he says. “And don’t put on any of your ridiculous watches.” 

“Ridiculous?” Simmons asks, insecurity bleeding into his tone like a fatal stab wound. 

Their conversation is railroaded by that tangent for the rest of the meal. 

-

Knowing when Kai is actually home is… challenging. There’s only ever a fifty percent chance of her noticing and answering a call on her phone, and even if she does and tells you where she’s going to be, something else might spontaneously come up and she’ll almost definitely forget to tell you about the change, or she’ll just randomly change her mind and forget to tell you, or she’ll decide to surprise ambush you instead and almost give you a heart attack. 

Anyways, she’s home about two or three nights a week on average and texts Grif and everyone else on her contact list near constantly, so he isn’t  _ too  _ worried. He just decides to solve the problem by inviting Simmons over to his place every night of the week; he and Kai are bound to bump into each other at least once then, and as a plus side it might even look unintentional and casual instead of a weird and deliberate meeting arranged by Grif. Unintentional and casual indicates that he doesn’t have anything to hide, nope, he’s definitely not keeping any secrets! 

“Wait,” Grif says into the phone as something occurs to him. “Don’t you have, like, a job? Can you visit me every day for a week?” 

“I’m the CEO, Grif. I make my own schedule.” 

“That’s really convenient, but I also kinda wanna strangle you sometimes.” 

“... Like, as a sex thing?” 

-

Grif isn’t nervous. He isn’t nervous. He  _ isn’t _ nervous. 

“Are you  _ cleaning?” _ Kai asks, sounding half incredulous and half almost disgusted. 

“What, pfft, no. I’m just.” Grif looks down at his arms, full of clothes that he’s picked up off the floor. “Moving stuff. Around.” 

“What, are we getting a home inspection or something? I thought they couldn’t do that since you became an adult.” 

“We’re not getting a home inspection.” He kicks some empty wrappers underneath his couch, and then looks over at Kai. She looks nice, like, party-nice. Clean, cutesy clothes and a full face of makeup. “You going out?” 

“Yeah, duh. Brendan’s--” as if Grif has any idea who that is, “--throwing this kickass beach party twenty minutes away, I’ll be out until, like, midnight? Unless I decide to have a sleepover with one of my friends.” 

Grif appreciates her calling it a ‘sleepover’ in front of him if nothing else. 

“Just don’t drink any booze,” he says. 

“Uh huh,” she says unconvincingly. 

“Just don’t get wasted,” he ammends himself. 

“Fine,” she says a little more convincingly. 

“And don’t drink anything already opened that a guy hands you, and always watch your drink--” he can’t help adding on, and it’s enough to make her roll her eyes, walk close enough to kiss his cheek, and then flounce out of the door. 

“Yeah, yeah, I got it, Dex!” she calls back after her. “Bye!” 

And the door shuts behind her, he’s alone, and she’s definitely not coming back until Simmons is so tired that he’s gone to bed if she’s coming back at all, so he might as well call him and tell him there’s no point in coming over today. 

Grif had forgotten over the last few years, thanks to his near constant exhaustion immediately knocking him out whenever he lied down anywhere vaguely comfortable such as his bed or the couch the second he got home from work, just how much he doesn’t like to be home alone. It’s too quiet, without anyone making small noises the next room over. Uncomfortably quiet, in a way that makes him tense and distracted, restless. 

What did he used to do during quiet times like these, before work and bills swallowed all of his focus? He’d hang out with friends. Friends that he’s completely lost contact with over the years, thanks to the aforementioned single minded focus on money and the painful lack of it in his life. 

Well, he has one new friend. (Would Simmons count them as friends?)

He doesn’t call him to tell him not to come. 

When Simmons comes, it’s in an Uber because Grif had told him to use one. His neighbour is pretty obviously an unrepentant car thief that just hasn’t been caught yet, and Grif is far from ready to say goodbye to that sweet, beautiful Ferrari. Not to mention that a sports car would kinda ruin the whole ‘I’m not rich’ gambit if Kai saw. 

He also comes wearing jeans like Grif had told him to. His shoes are way too fancy to entirely pull of the normal-dude vibe that they’re going for, but at least he isn’t obviously a millionaire from just looking at him. 

“Does it look okay?” Simmons nervously asks him as he stands on the doorstep. “Is your sister home?” 

“Uh,” Grif says. “No.” 

“No? To which one? Why are you staring like that!?” Simmons’ voice is rapidly jumping octaves, and Grif should do something about that. With some difficulty, he tears his eyes away from the jeans. He’s never seen Simmons in anything but a suit or just nothing before, and seeing him wear something approaching casual for the first time is… weirdly hot. 

Why has his libido stopped making any sense since he met this man. 

“She isn’t home, and you look fine.”  _ More  _ than fine. “Come inside.” 

He does, looking around in poorly disguised interest. It’s the first time he’s seen the inside of Grif’s place. Grif had, despite his previous denials, cleaned up. A little. Not, like, a weird amount. Just a little freshening up to make sure there wasn’t a literal pizza slice rotting on the floor (he’d found three of those). Grif watches him keenly with slightly more well disguised interest, looking intently for anything that might be an aborted grimace or a frown. 

He just looks interested, drinking in all of the details of Grif’s home. 

“Want something to eat?” Grif asks, so he isn’t just silently staring at Simmons like a weirdo. And then he remembers the contents of his fridge and stifles a grimace. He might have money now, but it’s hard to kick the habits he’s acquired. Fast and easy food is just so, well, _ fast and easy.  _

“Yes please,” Simmons says, like a polite little guest. 

“I hope you like pizza rolls and Mountain Dew, then.” 

It turns out Simmons has never had either of these things, but he appreciates that there are instructions on the side of the box. 

“All food should have this!” he says excitedly, making Grif stare at him blankly. Simmons elaborates. “You know, like for example when I made pancakes, I had to Google a recipe for them. Which really isn’t that tedious, but all of the recipes that disagree with each other are a little, uh, confusing. I hate conflicting orders, y’know? Having an  _ official  _ recipe would be nice.” 

This man has never eaten a frozen pizza in his life. Or read a cookbook, apparently. 

“Dumbass,” he can’t stop himself from saying. 

Simmons flushes. “I am not! I’m making perfect sense--” 

“You’re  _ such _ a dumbass.” 

“Repeating it doesn’t make it true!”

“Put the rolls in the oven before I starve and die, dumbass.” 

Simmons huffs, and then takes the tray of pizza rolls, opens the oven door, and bends over to put them in. 

Grif realizes that Simmons’ ass looks fantastic in jeans. 

Simmons closes the door and stays bent over, fiddling with the dials until they exactly match what the instructions on the box are telling him they should be. 

Grif realizes that he’d automatically locked the front door once Simmons had walked through it, and he remembers that while Kai has a house key, she loses it at least once a month. She’d  _ have _ to knock first. And she just left less than an hour ago. And she’ll probably just ‘sleepover’ with someone instead anyways. 

Simmons starts to stand up, finally satisfied with the oven’s settings. 

It really isn’t a good thing how well his libido can change his mind and make him go back on entirely sensible decisions. 

It’s still a thing, though. 

Grif reaches out and grabs Simmons’ hips from behind. They’re narrow, and his hands are big. They fit nicely in his grip, like they belong. Simmons freezes where he is, hands on the top of the oven for support, on his way back up to a normal standing position, but not quite there yet. Grif tightens his grip, digs his fingers into the denim and the warmth, and Simmons makes a slight noise, almost like a squeak. 

Grif takes a step closer to him so they’re standing flush against each other, the already straining bulge of his crotch pressed up against the cleft of Simmons’ ass. His ears and the back of his neck are already turning a bright red. 

“I thought you said no having sex at your place,” he says, voice not entirely steady. 

“Sister ain’t home,” Grif says, his own voice already audibly heated. He grinds up against Simmons’ ass a little, and Simmons sways forward a bit, has to brace himself better against the oven, his legs sliding a little farther apart for better balance. “Door’s locked.” 

Simmons’ breath leaves him in a shaky burst, and then he presses back up against Grif in return.  _ Go ahead.  _

Grif leans down and over him to press a quick, fond kiss against the skin behind Simmons’ ear, and reaches out with his hand to grab the bottle of coconut oil standing by the oven in the same motion. He’d bought it a little while ago on impulse (because he’s trying to let go of his thriftiness a little) while it was on sale (because he’s letting his thriftiness go a _ little).  _

“Wait, hang on, that’s not lube,” Simmons says. 

“It  _ lubricates, _ it’s an oil meant for consumption, I’m sure it’s safe to go up your ass.” He twists the cap off with his teeth, spits it onto the floor, unwilling to let go of his grip on Simmons’ hips just yet. 

“Don’t say it like that!” he says. 

“Well, that’s what lube  _ does.”  _ He’s fumbling at Simmons’ fly one handed, pressing brief little kisses to the back of his neck. Arguing seems to weirdly  _ relax _ Simmons, and Grif honestly doesn’t mind it either. Bickering is the comfortable armchair of conversation, and Grif loves comfortable. 

“That doesn’t change the fact that you can’t just  _ MacGyver up  _ sexual aids--” 

“Heh.” The fly is finally defeated.  _ “Sexual aids.”  _

“Wha-- oh my god, do not make that joke while we’re--” 

Grif pours a small amount of coconut oil onto the palm of his hand, slips it down Simmons’ pants, and rubs his dick. Simmons makes a delightfully weird strangled noise. Kinda wheezy. 

He pulls down the collar of Simmons’ shirt a bit and gets started on making a hickey. No one’s gonna see it  _ there, _ right? 

“You shit,” Simmons says, and he sounds like Grif’s hand is around his throat and not his dick. He thrusts into his grip a bit, sliding slick and easy, the movement so noticeable when he’s gripping his hip with one hand so tightly. Grif grins against Simmons’ skin and grinds up against him. 

“Okay if I fuck you over the oven?” he asks. 

“I, what--  _ you--!”  _

Grif gives him a moment, although it might not be a very effectively spent moment considering he’s pumping his dick the entire time. 

_ “Fine,” _ he eventually grits out. 

“Just fine?” he teases. 

“... _ Very _ fine,” he mutters. 

Grif hums, shoves Simmons’ pants down to his thighs, and his own swiftly follow suit. He pours more oil onto his hand and leans back enough to rub himself, and he groans with relief at the stark difference from grinding against at least three layers of clothes. Simmons looks at him over his shoulder, his eyes darting from Grif’s dick to his face, flushed. 

It’s a bit easier to nonchalantly tease Simmons when he isn’t being _ looked _ at, especially like that. 

“You should--” he says, gesturing at the bottle. 

“--Oh, right, yes, of course, I can, um, definitely do that--” he rambles, knocking over the bottle as he reaches for it. He squeaks and hurriedly rights it up, and now there’s a small puddle of oil on the oven. Simmons helplessly looks around himself. 

“Are you looking for a dishtowel,” Grif huffs incredulously. 

“Maybe?” he says. 

Grif has to stop for a moment and hide his face in Simmons’ shoulder, smiling. This  _ dumbass.  _

“I, I mean no! Of course not! I am  _ not _ going to start cleaning up in the middle of sex.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“That happens  _ after _ sex.” 

“Not  _ immediately _ after,” he says. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Simmons says. Grif rolls his eyes. 

“Lube?” he prompts him. 

“It’s not lube,” Simmons says, the stubborn pedant, but he reaches for the bottle anyways, pouring some onto his organic hand. Grif gives him enough space to reach in between his legs, and watches as he starts to finger himself. Simmons’ prosthetic hand is splayed out on the oven for balance, but apparently the metal isn’t great at traction because he keeps slipping a little here and there, having to readjust, and Grif wraps an arm around his midsection, holding him close and balanced. 

“Thanks,” Simmons says, low and a little breathy, and Grif grunts in reply as he feels the small movements of Simmons’ arm pressed up between them moving. 

A brief bout of nerves placated by another brief moment of idiotic arguing. Maybe Grif should shut up less during sex. 

He can’t help but nip and kiss and suck a bit at the back of Simmons’ neck and shoulders as he waits, and the small moans that escape Simmons are  _ wonderful.  _

“Grif,” he groans, and Grif hums and bites down on the arch of muscle between his shoulder and neck. Simmons inhales sharply, practically a gasp.  _ “Grif. _ I’m, I’m done, I’m ready.” 

It takes a moment for his brain to catch up with the words, feeling kinda foggy and distracted. “Oh.  _ Oh,  _ okay, lemme--” Back up enough for Simmons to slip his hand back out and back up onto the oven. It’s so slippery it isn’t much better as support than his prosthetic. There’s a thin dribble of oil going down the inside of his right thigh, and it’s driving him  _ insane.  _

Grif takes a hold of his dick and slides inside perhaps a bit faster than recommended, but  _ god  _ it’s good, and god he loves the noises Simmons is making. He bites his lip, summoning up all of his force of will, and slides out slowly, and then back in slowly. 

_ “Fuck,”  _ Simmons says, and then his hand slides enough along the oven to meet the earlier spilled oil puddle, and it promptly goes flying out from under him. With a yelp his torso crashes down onto the oven, his arms gathered underneath him, and Grif’s brain whites out a little at the way this makes Simmons press down back onto his dick. 

Mindlessly, he thrusts up into him in return. Simmons cries out, and then presses back more intentionally this time. Grif takes this as the invitation it is and starts fucking  _ railing _ him. Simmons swears and fumbles a hand down to touch his own dick, rocking with the force of Grif’s thrusts. Yes, yes, this is good,  _ really _ fucking good. 

He can kind of see Simmons’ face. One side of it, a little bit, and the corner of his mouth that he can see looks bitten red and a touch swollen. Sweat on his skin, greying auburn hair all messed up and starting to stick to his forehead. He’s gonna have to take a shower, here, where the warm water takes forever to heat up and one of the ceiling tiles is cracked and the bath mat is absolutely disgusting. With all of Kai’s shampoo bottles with words like ‘desire’ on them and the kind of weak light bulb. 

Simmons in his shower. The idea of it feels like sparks in his brain, something short circuiting and overheating. He grabs Simmons by the hips tightly enough to bruise, and moves him on his dick, thrusts into him, and Simmons is so  _ noisy, _ it’s fantastic. It’s a good thing the neighbours don’t care. 

Grif can tell that Simmons comes by the way he moves, the way he sounds, voice breaking and body going shivery tense. It’s good, it’s good. He closes his eyes and focuses on coming too. 

“Grif,” Simmons says, sounding almost groggy with exhaustion, satisfaction. He opens his eyes. Simmons is looking at him from over his shoulder, dark eyed and sweaty and his mouth looks  _ really _ good. He smiles at him, tired and fond, and it suddenly looks ten times better. 

“Fuck,” he rasps, and curls over Simmons’ back as he comes. 

The timer they set for the pizza rolls rings. 

-

They disentangle themselves, turn off the oven, Simmons freaks out about the semen on the oven, Grif laughs, Simmons blushes and mutters and fusses and cleans it off and then leaves for a shower. Grif eats four pizza rolls and almost falls asleep before he comes back out, clean and pink skinned and warm from the hot water. It’s a very specific look that he  _ really  _ likes for some reason. He kisses him and leaves him with the rest of the pizza rolls and the television while he goes and has his own shower. Accidentally lets himself think about how seeing Simmons smile at him had pushed him over the edge, and hides his face in his hands underneath the spray of water as he’s absolutely disgusted with himself. He’s ridiculous. He might as well be doodling their combined initials in his notebook. 

Dexter Simmons. Richard Grif. Dexter and Richard Grif-Simmons. 

He makes a high pitched whiny noise at himself and shuts off the spray, forgoing washing his hair. 

Towel off, throw on some sweats, leave the bathroom to go and find Simmons and distract himself from his own heinous  _ mushiness-- _

“--and if you _ ever--  _ hiiii, Dex!” 

Grif blinks, caught entirely off guard. “Kai. You’re back?” 

She is. She’s wearing a different top than before that isn’t hers and he doesn’t really want to think about that, and she’s standing terribly close to Simmons who looks paler than when Grif last saw him. 

“Brendan’s party was crap,” she says. She bumps Simmons with her hip and Simmons squeaks. She smiles and winks at Grif. “This the definitely not real booty call?” 

Grif looks at Simmons’ still wet hair, feels water drip down his own neck. “... Okay, yes. Although he’s less of a booty call and more of an, uh,” is this part even true, fuck, whatever, “boyfriend.” 

She throws her head back and does a little cackle. “I didn’t know you liked older dudes! He  _ is _ kinda cute, I guess.” 

“Thank you?” Simmons says, looking mildly terrified and like he wasn’t entirely sure if he should be offended. 

She gives him a toothy smile that makes Simmons subtly edge away, grabs a pizza roll, walks over to Grif, kisses him on the cheek, whispers, “He’s got shoes like a  _ cop,”, _ and then moves around him towards her room. Her bedroom door closes. 

Grif and Simmons look at each other. 

“... Did that teenage girl just give you a shovel talk?” Grif asks, slowly beginning to grin. 

“No!” Simmons denies far too quickly. Grif smiles wider. Simmons starts flushing. “Shut up!” 

“I think she likes you,” he says, and it’s the truth. 

“I didn’t get that impression,” Simmons grumbles, and Grif doesn’t listen to him. If Kai hadn’t liked him, she would’ve just thrown him out or acted crazy at him until he left. 

Kai likes Simmons. He walks over to Simmons and pulls him down with him onto the couch, feeling light and giddy. It creaks, bounces, and then the two of them sink into it. The thing’s older than Grif’s mother. 

“Can I buy you a new couch?” Simmons asks. 

“Nope,” Grif says. 


	9. And then they fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the third time Grif catches himself daydreaming entirely tame and domestic fantasies about the guy he bent and fucked over his oven, it starts to get harder to deny the awful, horrible fact that he has fallen in unironic painfully sincere love with a person that it is incredibly inconvenient to be in love with.

After the third time Grif catches himself daydreaming entirely tame and domestic fantasies about the guy he bent and fucked over his oven, it starts to get harder to deny the awful, horrible fact that he has fallen in unironic painfully sincere love with a person that it is incredibly inconvenient to be in love with. 

He can’t avoid Simmons until the feelings go away. He can’t just smother them away because they keep  _ kissing.  _ He’s in some kind of hell, he’s pretty sure. 

What they have right now is great, anyways. He doesn’t need more. What more could he ask for? To be able to hold Simmons’ hand in public? To be able to move in and live with him? To be absolutely certain that this isn’t just some paid sexy kink shit, that they’re in love, they’re together? A ring? 

Shit. 

 

Simmons is sipping at his fancy imported coffee that he made with his fancy imported coffee machine, his shirt only two thirds of the way buttoned up, revealing patches of metal and the many, many hickeys Grif left on him last night. The sunlight is hitting his grey and ginger hair _ just  _ right. He looks serene. Grif glares at him venomously from across the kitchen where he  _ was _ putting marshmallows between his poptarts until he got distracted. 

Simmons notices him. He looks vaguely concerned. “Is everything alright, Grif?” 

“Yes. Perfect,” he grits out. He spreads nutella on top of the marshmallows. 

“Are you sure that’s a normal diet?” he asks dubiously. 

“Yup, all of the cool kids are doing it.” 

“I’ll find out if you’re lying to me,” he declares. “I’ll ask the intern, Josh. He’s young.” 

“Uh huh.” 

“Or social media.” 

“You have a social media account?” 

“No, but some of my companies do.” 

_ Some _ of his companies. God. 

Grif reaches for the sprinkles can and Simmons does that frumpy face at him. Mouth and brow all scrunched up, nose wrinkled, comedically grumpy. He accidentally upends half of the sprinkles can onto his poptarts creation and plays it off like he meant to do it. Simmons looks quietly aghast. 

He’s got a cowlick. Every single tender part of him wants for him to try and smooth it down, and he hates it. 

How seriously is Simmons taking their (relationship) arrangement? As seriously as Grif is? Will he cut and run if Grif tells him how seriously he  _ is _ taking it? 

“Do you have chocolate syrup,” he asks instead. 

“You’ve already got nutella on it,” he protests. 

“They’re different.” 

_ “Are _ they?” 

“Why did you choose me?” 

“What?” 

Grif bites his tongue. He hadn’t meant to ask that. He thinks. Sure, he’s been trying and failing to think of an answer to that question for basically this entire time, but he hadn’t meant to actually ask it out loud. Who knows what the answer might be? It could be not good, for all he knows. Knowing his luck, it probably isn’t. 

“I mean,” he forces himself to say, because it’d be weird to just leave the question dangling out there to die of exposure, “the night we first met. Why’d you choose  _ me?”  _

Great, he’s flushing now. He doesn’t want to be distracted for this conversation, damn it, but it’s hard not to think about nestling up close to him against his warm skin when he does that. He’s too used to going for the lips and the belt buckle whenever he goes red. 

“I--I-- well,” he stutters, fumbling for an answer. He awkwardly holds his coffee cup in front of him like a shield. “I just. You looked. Nice.” 

“Nice,” he says. What is that even supposed to mean?

Simmons does a flailing hand motion, visibly remembers that he’s holding a cup of coffee. “Well, you know! Nice! You!” He clears his throat, seems to gather himself. “You’re… different. From everyone else in my life. You’re not trying charm or flatter me for a promotion or something, you don’t do everything I tell you to, and you’re not an enemy. You’re just a person. Who’s fun to talk to, and isn’t afraid of swearing around me, and you’re calm, which is also different from everybody else in my life. You look so relaxed. You talk slow. It’s nice. I like your voice. I like your eyes. I like your smile. I like your laugh. I like the way you talk shit to me. When you’re nice to me, it feels real.” 

He’s not flushed now. How isn’t he, saying shit like that? Looking Grif right in the eye? All earnest and sincere and serious? 

Grif stares at him, gobsmacked. Simmons likes his smile. 

As Grif continues just to stare at him, the expected blush starts creeping up Simmons’ neck. He starts to hold himself awkwardly and stiffly, like he desperately wants to fidget. 

“Um,” Simmons says, voice breaking on the single syllable. “Grif?” 

Simmons likes his laugh. 

“You’re ridiculous,” he says. “And stupid, and weird, and dorky, and sweet, and  _ really weird.”  _

“You said weird twice.” 

“I love you.” The words are ripped out of him by his own heart, fuck. 

Simmons’ eyes go very, very wide and his hand goes slack enough for piping hot coffee to spill over onto his hand. He yelps, nerdy and high pitched. 

Grif’s throat is dry. He kind of just wants to walk out of the house and never come back and never see Simmons’ face again. 

But his third and fourth poptarts are in the toaster and he still hasn’t found his pants which have his car keys in them and it looks so hot outside and the ACs inside and Simmons is hurriedly putting his coffee cup down and sucking at the light burn mark on his hand and coming closer. 

“Is that a positive response?” he asks, feeling a bit like he isn’t in his body, like this moment in time isn’t real. He’s dreaming. Must be. Yes, that makes sense. He’d never be brave enough to say something like that if he was awake. 

“It’s-- it’s a surprised response,” Simmons says. “I wasn’t expecting that. Um.” 

The poptarts shoot out of the toaster. Both of them ignore them. 

“Well?” Grif has to fight for every second he forces himself to make eye contact with Simmons. He wants to look away and start blowing this off. For every moment that he doesn’t, he’s digging himself deeper, making this all more and more obviously sincere. Real. Vulnerable. He’s going to get his heart broken. He’s going to get dumped on the curb like yesterdays reeking trash. 

He’d rather have that then continue to do this and wonder if Simmons really likes him at all. 

Simmons likes his eyes. 

“I like your eyes too,” he says. “And your really nerdy laugh. I bet I could pick it out of a stadium sized crowd. And the way your smile’s so-- crooked, unsteady. And--” 

“I love you too,” Simmons breathes. 

Grif thumps his head against Simmons’ chest. 

“Are you swooning?” He sounds half amused and half alarmed. Half ecstatically happy. That isn’t how math works. It’s fine. Grif just barely didn’t fail math anyways. His arm come around Grif to support him. Fuck, this is a hug isn’t it. Grif is  _ dying.  _

“Shut up,” he mutters. “You just took too long to answer is all.” 

“Sorry,” Simmons says, and Grif can feel the way he’s smiling against the top of his head. So big. His arms are tight around him. 

“Way too long. But later is better than never.” 

And then they fuck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ITS DONE. OVER. CAPICHE. GOD. THANK YOU ALL.


End file.
